C Spire president Stephen Bye is leaving to head a new company focused on in-building wireless networks. As a result, C Spire's longtime CEO Hu Meena in taking control of C Spire's wired and wireless offerings.

Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies

March 26, 2019

2 Min Read
C Spire's Bye Says Farewell

Stephen Bye is no longer the president of C Spire. As a result, the company's longtime CEO, Hu Meena, appears to be stepping into that gap and is directly managing most of the company's top executives.

"Stephen Bye has recently transitioned his role from president to a member of the company's Board of Directors. He has made a great contribution to our company and continues to advise on our continued diversification into a full array of home services, managed solutions for businesses and wireless services," C Spire's Dave Miller told Light Reading. "Since his departure, we have reorganized and most senior managers responsible for our three lines of business are now reporting directly to CEO Hu Meena."

Bye appears to have moved from C Spire to lead a newly formed company focusing on in-building wireless products, ranging from LTE to WiFi to 5G. Private equity firm M/C Partners said it engineered the merger of Neutral Connect Networks with Connectivity Wireless Solutions and its Simplifi DAS Holdings subsidiary into a new company that Bye will helm.

"We design, engineer, deploy, integrate, operate and manage systems with carrier-grade DNA," Bye wrote of his new company. "Whether you are a property owner, real estate developer, or a wireless service provider, we are here to help you to address your customers' needs. We can partner with you to deliver a carrier-grade, next-generation in-building wireless solution that enables your customers to have affordable, ubiquitous wireless connectivity."

Bye is essentially stepping indoors after spending much of his career building networks outside. Bye served as executive director of converged services at AT&T, but rose to prominence leading the construction of cable company Cox's ill-fated wireless network. Bye left Cox in 2011, shortly before the company shuttered its wireless business, to join Sprint as the operator's CTO. He then left Sprint in 2015 to join C Spire -- first as CTO and then, after a short stint at Rivada -- as C Spire's president. In that position, Bye managed the company's wireless unit with nearly 1 million customers, as well as C Spire's voice, data, Internet, television and phone services across four states in the southeastern US.

Bye's departure from C Spire returns much of the company's operations back over to CEO Meena, who has worked for the company for more than 30 years, including as its chairman and CEO for the past 22 years.

Mike Dano, Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading | @mikeddano

About the Author(s)

Mike Dano

Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies, Light Reading

Mike Dano is Light Reading's Editorial Director, 5G & Mobile Strategies. Mike can be reached at [email protected], @mikeddano or on LinkedIn.

Based in Denver, Mike has covered the wireless industry as a journalist for almost two decades, first at RCR Wireless News and then at FierceWireless and recalls once writing a story about the transition from black and white to color screens on cell phones.

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