- Sector
- Communication Services
- Industry
- Telecommunications Services
- Address
- 3905 Dakota Street SW Alexandria United States of America 56308
- IPO Date
- May 2, 1996
- Business
- Rural Cellular Corporation (RCC) operates as a telecommunications provider specializing in wireless services for rural markets across the United States. The company offers mobile phone services under the Unicel brand, including GSM at 850 MHz and 1900 MHz PCS frequencies as well as CDMA in select Minnesota areas; it previously provided 850 MHz cellular under Cellular 2000 until 2005, alongside paging via Keypage and voice-mail access. RCC serves customers in northern New England (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts), the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Kansas), the Northwest (Idaho, Washington, Oregon), and the South (Alabama, Mississippi); headquartered in Alexandria, Minnesota, the company was founded in 1990 through a partnership of 40 telephone companies holding cellular licenses north and west of St. Cloud, Minnesota.
RCC expanded aggressively post-1996 IPO through acquisitions, doubling its population served multiple times to reach 6.4 million POPs and 716,000 customers by 2007 via purchases including Unity Cellular Systems (Unicel) in Maine for $85.7 million in 1997 and Triton Cellular assets covering 2.4 million POPs in Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Oregon, and Washington for $1.24 billion in 1999.
In July 2007, Verizon Wireless agrees to acquire RCC for $2.67 billion in cash plus assumed debt to broaden network coverage in rural areas; the deal closes on January 25, 2009, following U.S. Department of Justice-mandated divestitures of Vermont, New York, and Washington operations plus tower sales in six markets to preserve competition, with AT&T acquiring certain Vermont shares by December 2008. Post-acquisition, Verizon integrates RCC's GSM and CDMA networks, converting customers to CDMA while retaining GSM for roaming revenue; Unicel operations fully transition by 2011, marking RCC's absorption as a defunct independent entity under Verizon. No active operations or ticker RCCC persist independently as of 2025.