Cellular South rebrands itself as C Spire Wireless

Cellular South CEO Hu Meena said as of Sept. 26 the company will change its name to C Spire Wireless and begin to offer a range of personalized wireless services.

cellular south personalized wireless sept. 26

Click here for a teaser ad for C Spire Wireless. 

The company had originally intended to announce the change Monday morning but moved up the announcement to Thursday afternoon. There had been rumors this week that the privately held company, which offers service primarily in the South, might change its name to Personalized Wireless. The changes amount to a radical brand and image shifting and will include changes to the company's retail stores. 

On a media conference call, Meena said the C in the company's name stands for "customer" and is combined with the word "inspire." He said "Cellular South" referred more to the kind of service the company offered and where it offered the service. The new company will offer a range of personalized service based upon customer preferences. The changes have been in the works for more than a year, Meena said.

The company plans to offer a variety of new services, which will offer recommendations for applications and content to customers based on a proprietary analytics engine called Pulse. Customers will be able to opt-in to the new services and control how much information they share about their preferences. Some key components of the new company include:

  • Scout: The company will offer a personalized recommendation experience that recommends the best apps and services based upon customer preferences. 
  • Percs: This program gives customers and non-customers rewards just for interacting with the company, including sharing their views on its community social forum, joining the Scout program and for being a loyal customer.
  • Social media integration: C Spire has developed programs that directly interact with customers on a personal level on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, including personalized app recommendations, daily prizes and gaming, insider information, the unique ability to share with friends and a customer care live chat.
  • Circle: The company will engage customers in a two-way conversation and listen to what they have to say through online panels, focus groups, user generated initiatives and more. 
  • Converged services: COO Kevin Hankins said C Spire customers will be able to control a variety of devices wirelessly, including computers, TVs, DVRs, digital cameras, cars and refrigerators in the near future through DLNA technology.
  • A new website: The company will launch a new website Monday that Meena described as "app-like" and which will be the home to a number of the new personalized services.

Meena said all of these services will be free of charge and opt-in. He said the company will be messaging its customers on Monday about all of the new changes. Meena also said C Spire will launch new personalized rate plans with "infinite" data for web access and messaging--though streaming media services will be limited in some fashion, though he did not provide details.

Meena said the company will still be based in Ridgeland, Miss., but he declined to comment on if or when C Spire would expand its network footprint. He also said the company is continuing to work on the deployment of LTE technology in its 700 MHz spectrum; the company had previously said it will launch LTE in the fourth quarter.

For more:
- see this release
- see this Personalized Wireless site

Related Articles:
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LightSquared inks LTE deal with Cellular South
AT&T, Cellular South debate 700 MHz interoperability at FCC
Verizon blasts Cellular South's LTE plans, argues against federal oversight