Shentel increases Sprint customers

EDINBURG -- Shentel, a Sprint Nextel affiliate, added 5,685 retail wireless customers in the fourth quarter, and 24,159 for all of 2008, the company said Friday.

Year-end PCS customers totaled 211,462, an increase of 12.9 percent.

The company's churn rate -- the percentage of wireless customers who opted out of their contracts -- was 1.87 percent.

Shentel also saw an increase in DSL subscribers, ending the year with just over 10,000, which represents 41 percent of the company's telephone access lines. Shenandoah Telephone ended last year with 327 fewer lines.

Shentel added 100 cable subscribers in Shenandoah County in the fourth quarter to end the year at 8,242. In December, it completed the acquisition of cable properties in West Virginia and Virginia from Rapid Communications LLC, bringing its total number of cable customers to 25,369.

The company's Converged Services division ended 2008 with 45,715 revenue-generating units, an increase of 5,325 from year-end 2007. Shentel previously announced plans to sell the segment.

Daily Staff Report