Shentel

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Shenandoah Telecommunications Company
Shentel Logo
Type
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: SHEN
Industry Telecommunications
Founded 1902[1]
Headquarters Edinburg, Virginia, USA
Services Local and long-distance telephone service, cable television, Internet
access, wireless Internet access, digital phone, fiber-optic Internet, wholesale
Revenue Increase 130.3 million[2]
Operating income
Decrease $-6.150 million[2]
Net income
Decrease $-6.995 million[2]
Number of employees
1200 [3]
Website www.shentel.com
Shentel, officially Shenandoah Telecommunications Company, is a publicly traded
telecommunications company headquartered in Edinburg, Virginia. It operates a
digital wireless and wireline network in rural Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland
and Pennsylvania.[4]
Shentel operates its wireless division as a Sprint affiliate,[5] serving 1,006,874
subscribers.[2]
History[edit]
Shentel was founded in 1902 as the Farmers Mutual Telephone System (FMTS). Its
initial goal was to bring telephone service to rural residents of Shenandoah
County, VA. [6] In 1960 the name changed to Shenandoah Telephone Company, then in
1981 to Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel).[7]
The company launched cable TV service and a fiber optic network in the 1980s. In
1984 Shentel added mobile and paging services. In 1990 Shentel launched Shenandoah
Cellular, the first company in Virginia to offer cellular service to a rural area.
Internet service was made available to Shentel customers in 1994. [8]
In the 2000s Shentel began to expand its cable footprint - purchasing cable assets
from Rapid Communications in Virginia and West Virginia in 2008[9], and acquiring
JetBroadband in southern Virginia and southern West Virginia in 2010.[10] Later in
2010, Shentel purchased two small cable systems from Suddenlink Communications (one
in West Virginia, the other in Maryland). [11]
In May 2016, Shentel finished acquiring its competitor Ntelos[12] for 640 million
dollars.[13] acquiring 297,500 subscribers. The deal also transferred an additional
291,000 subscribers from Sprint in exchange for Ntelos spectrum[14][15], making
Shentel the sixth largest public wireless company in the United States.[16]