Now the smaller guys are coming for UScellular's remainsNow the smaller guys are coming for UScellular's remains

After the big dogs got their fill, now the market's smaller players are coming in to nibble at the leftovers.

Specifically, both Nex-Tech Wireless and Nsight recently filed FCC paperwork to acquire some spectrum licenses from UScellular. They're doing so after T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon dropped a combined $6.4 billion to purchase UScellular's operations, including most of its spectrum holdings.

For UScellular, the transactions with Nex-Tech and Nsight represent a few of the last gasps of a company that was once the biggest regional wireless network operator in the US. At its height, UScellular counted around 5 million customers across around 21 states. But – like many small and regional wireless network operators in the US – UScellular couldn't compete with nationwide players like Verizon and T-Mobile.

After one of the company's biggest shareholders demanded a sale, UScellular announced last year that T-Mobile would purchase around 30% of UScellular's spectrum holdings in bands ranging from 600MHz to 700MHz, AWS, 2.5GHz and 24GHz. T-Mobile is also buying all of UScellular's customers and its retail stores in a deal worth $4.4 billion.

Regulators are still reviewing the transaction. T-Mobile, for its part, recently received a vote of support from the Conference of National Black Churches. (While it might seem strange that a church group would have an opinion on a telecom mega-merger, this kind of politicking is standard practice in the messy, high-stakes world of corporate M&A.)

Buzzards

After T-Mobile took its bite out of UScellular, Verizon said it would buy $1 billion worth of UScellular's spectrum in the 850MHz and AWS spectrum bands. And then AT&T inked its own deal to buy lowband 700MHz and midband 3.45GHz spectrum from UScellular in a deal worth $1.01 billion.

After those three mega-deals, the financial analysts at New Street Research estimated that UScellular's remaining spectrum holdings were worth about $1.8 billion.

That's the spectrum that now appears to be opening up to smaller players like Nex-Tech Wireless and Nsight.

(It's also worth noting that UScellular is still working to sell its 4,356 cell towers that the financial analysts at Raymond James valued at around $2.6 billion. Likely buyers include SBA Communications and American Tower, among others).

The details

Founded in 1910, Nsight provides telecom services throughout Wisconsin and upper Michigan. The company began upgrading to 5G in 2022 with vendor Ericsson.

In its filing to the FCC, Nsight said it would buy some C-band and CBRS spectrum from UScellular covering parts of Wisconsin and Michigan.

Similarly, Nex-Tech Wireless operates a wireless network in urban and rural parts of Kansas and Colorado. It began its move to 5G with vendor Ericsson in 2020.

In its filing, Nex-Tech said it would buy one of UScellular's 700MHz licenses covering Kansas.

Terms of the transactions were not disclosed in the FCC filings, and companies typically do not comment on their spectrum purchases in the so-called secondary market. (The primary market for spectrum purchases is in FCC auctions).

The details of UScellular's latest spectrum transactions were highlighted by Airwave Research, a new startup in the wireless industry that maintains a real-time database of spectrum purchases and ownership. The firm estimates the value of Nsight's spectrum deal with UScellular at $500,000, and the value of Nex-Tech's deal at $2.7 million. Airwave calculates the value of spectrum licenses based on a variety of factors, including past spectrum market transactions.

Regardless, the transactions are noteworthy in that they indicate that both Nsight and Nex-Tech are still active players in the US wireless industry. That's surprising given the rapidly shrinking number of small wireless network operators in the country.