Ameritel Communications Inc., a wireless reseller owned by USCI Inc., has quickly and quietly become a weighty presence in the resale industry. The company, which began last year with fewer than 1,000 subscribers, now estimates it supports about 40,000.
At the end of the third quarter, Ameritel reported 5,500 subscribers. By November, that number had increased to nearly 25,000. The company said it believes it signed on more wireless subscribers last year than any other reseller in the United States, with the possible exceptions of MCI Communications Corp. and WorldCom Inc.
The company also believes its covered population of more than 200 million people nationally is the largest of any reseller, said Mario Martinez, president and chief operating officer of USCI.
“Last year was a period of transition for Ameritel, in which we converted from an agent to a nationwide reseller,” said Martinez. “During the course of the year, we established (Ameritel) as one of the largest-if not the largest-reseller in the industry in terms of coverage.
“We also have established ourself as a leader in mass market retail distribution,” continued Martinez. “Our strategy was to increase network presence and coverage as a reseller as well as establishing a presence in distribution channels and growing our points of presence. We had a successful year.”
Ameritel’s expansion plans for the year include the addition of another 20 million pops, and “that should pretty much complete us for this year,” said Martinez. The company this year plans to switch its focus from growing its covered population to increasing its subscriber base.
Ameritel has agreements with several mass market retailers, including CompUSA Inc., Sun Television and Appliances Inc., RadioShack, Kmart and OfficeMax. Ameritel said it hopes its mass market retail strategy, coupled with several planned mergers between resellers, will put it near the top of the list of wireless resellers. MCI and WorldCom, two of the nation’s largest wireless resellers, are scheduled to merge in a $37 billion stock agreement.
“We feel comfortable,” said Martinez. “At the clip we’re growing, by mid-year we should wind up being in the top five of wireless resellers.”
A combined WorldCom/MCI would provide the most direct competition to Ameritel because the companies are the only resellers with a nationwide footprint. Martinez, however, said Ameritel won’t compete directly with MCI because its focus on the consumer through mass market channels differs significantly from MCI’s focus on business customers.
Asked whether MCI’s strong brand name will be difficult to compete against, Martinez said brands bring traffic into the store, but other factors are more persuasive in the final decision, including price and coverage.
Ameritel began offering a national rate plan as part of an agreement with OfficeMax. Martinez said it was the first opportunity the company had to test the rate plan as well as ubiquitous coverage. Martinez said a significant percentage of the population is in the process of relocating at any given time, and those customers value the ability to stay with their service provider when they move.
