Factors that cause a cell site to shut down
Question for Mark van der Hoek
Mark: I understand mergers between carriers might cause a cell site to shut down. Any other factors?
Two rare instances, one policy, the other technical. Qwest Wireless decided to shut down their network and become a reseller on Sprint's network. Some of their sites were sold to Sprint, some to Verizon, and some were decommissioned. That's a unique event in wireless. Sometimes a carrier will have a 'boomer' site -- a site that was put up early in the network, at a high elevation. Now it covers too far, and a half dozen sites are built to replace it and the boomer is eradicated. That's a 'time to time' kind of thing.