Rural Wireless Carriers Advised to Innovate or Die

May 5 2010 - 12:59 pm ET | Dan Meyer | RCR Wireless News

LAS VEGAS – Rural wireless carriers received a brutally honest opinion of what their future may look like if they fail to keep up with rapidly technology changes in the mobile industry during a panel discussion at this year’s Rural Cellular Association event in Las Vegas.

"If you are in the 2G wireless business you are going to be out of business within the next 10 years,” said Amit Patel, CTO for Alcatel-Lucent’s U.S. strategic wireless accounts, told attendees.

Of course, Patel’s comments were tinged a bit by the fact they came from a vendor looking to sell the latest technology to those in attendance, but others on the panel did not seem to disagree with the basic gist of the warning. And for the most part, many rural wireless carriers are interested in updating their networks so that they can take advantage of more advanced devices and services that their customers are interested in.

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