Hu Meena takes the phone service into the future

Photography by Matthew Wood

The year was 1988. Wade and Jimmy Creekmore had been in the telephone business for 29 years, but times were changing. For some time, the duo had been studying a new form of communication: wireless telephony.  Finally, the licensing was finalized and it was time to pull the trigger.

“We started on the Gulf Coast,” says Hu Meena, president and CEO of C Spire Wireless. Meena led the effort and there were nine employees when the company started. (All of the original employees stayed with the company or an affiliate company; one has retired.) Formerly known as Cellular South, the company introduced wireless service on February 4, 1988 with Ole Miss football legend Archie Manning making the inaugural call to then-U.S. Representative Trent Lott in Washington, D.C.

C Spire actually got its start back in the late 1940’s, when the family of Wade H. Creekmore, Sr. entered the telecommunications business with the purchase of a small, rural local telephone company in Calhoun City, Mississippi. Telapex Inc. is the parent company of C Spire Wireless, and has several subsidiaries, including Franklin Telephone Company, Delta Telephone Company, and Telepak Networks. The original goal for entering the wireless telecommunications business was to provide the rural areas the company served with the same quality telephone service that was available in any metropolitan area of the country.

Meena explains that the company has experienced steady growth since its first days of operation. “It was slow and steady at first. As we went from car phones to pocket phones, we were working to get to the point where we would cover all of Mississippi. By 1999, we covered pretty much all areas of the state, then we began filling in. In 2002, we began adding markets in Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.”

According to Jim Richmond, director of corporate communications for C Spire, the Creekmore’s business in the early 1960’s consisted primarily of rural telephone exchanges in several Mississippi counties, a fact that would ultimately prove crucial in establishing a business presence that would give the company access to lotteries for cellular licenses. “The people who thought they needed cell phones in the early years of wireless generally bought them for business use,” says Richmond. “And that was only for occasional, very important calls, with the phones costing more than $1,000 each for top-of-the-line models, and per-minute charges hovering close to a dollar, not to mention exorbitant roaming and long-distant fees. The industry had a very narrow market.”

Thankfully, that has changed drastically, and C Spire has led this change as a pioneering industry innovator. Still privately held, locally managed and headquartered in Mississippi, C Spire has expanded in tandem with the astonishing growth of the wireless industry. The company has led the industry with innovative voice and data services, and a commitment to providing the same advanced wireless services in rural areas that are available in metropolitan areas.

Through the years, Meena says the company has had its challenges. As technology changed, the opportunity to move from analog to digital presented itself.  1999 was a significant milestone year for the company. “That was when we started moving from ‘dumb phones’ to ‘smartphones,’ says Meena. “We also converted the company’s entire network to digital services and led the wireless industry as one of the first companies to offer plans featuring free incoming calls, as well as flat-rate unlimited voice, text messaging and e-mail service.”

In 2005, Cellular South’s commitment to network reliability was proven during and after Hurricane Katrina, and, for many, Cellular South was the first and only means of communication available during and after the storm. Where stores were destroyed, Cellular South set up tents, offering free call and battery-charging centers for customers and non-customers to call their loved ones anywhere in the country. Cellular South’s network also carried 8.5 million minutes of usage from other wireless companies’ customers in the first two weeks after Katrina, another sign of the company’s network reliability and superior coverage.

As technology has evolved, so has the company. The most significant change thus far is the introduction of a new C Spire brand to replace the Cellular South name.  The change was a closely guarded internal secret for more than a year as the company wrestled with how to evolve its brand to reflect the products and services it offers today.

“We’ve entered a new era in wireless—an era centered around broadband networks, mobile computing devices and personalized services.  Completing calls is only a small part of what we will deliver for our customers,” says Meena. “Cellular South was a great name and served us well for almost a quarter of a century. But, the name was more about the category than who we are and what we aspire to become. We named our company C Spire Wireless because personalized wireless is inspired by our customers and the illuminated “C” in the center of the icon and in the first letter of our new brand name represents our continued commitment to putting our customers at the center of everything we do.”

What differentiates C Spire from other wireless companies is the fact that customers can now personalize their wireless service experience. “Other companies, like Google and Amazon, were offering personalized service to customers, but C Spire is the first and only wireless company to offer a personalized service,” Meena says. “Personalized wireless at C Spire is a combination of a number of different services, systems and programs that combine to offer an unmatched wireless experience that directly reflects and serves each customer’s unique needs.”

A smartphone is like a miniature computer that can also place and receive calls. While there is no real industry-standard definition of a smartphone, the simplest way to tell a cell phone apart from a smartphone is to determine whether or not the device has a mobile operating system, which is much like what powers a personal computer. Today’s smartphones and wireless tablets essentially have the computing power of yesterday’s laptops.

Today’s C Spire is not just a wireless service company. It is a multi-media technology provider that is seamlessly connecting all of their customers’ devices for an optimum, converged experience. The future looks bright for C Spire, whose new logo features rays emanating from the ‘c.’  Customers will soon be able to use the company’s Converged Services to connect consumer electronic devices to easily access and share media content, as well as be able to control a variety of devices wirelessly, including computers, TVs, DVRs, digital cameras and even cars and refrigerators, creating the total multi-screen experience.

The corporate headquarters for the company is located on the Highland Colony Parkway in Ridgeland. From the original nine employees back in 1988, the company has grown to a workforce of approximately 1,250. For more information on C Spire Wireless, log on to www.cspire.com. DBJ