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Arch Wireless bankruptcy filing worries customers The company provides paging service to a large part of Jackson County By GREG STILES The company providing service to a sizable portion of Jackson County's wireless paging customers has filed for bankruptcy. Just how long Arch Wireless, the nation's largest paging/messaging provider, will be able to provide service is unknown. Arch has more than 13 million subscribers and a 40 percent market share. It provides services in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and in the Caribbean. On Dec. 7, the company filed for Chapter 11 protection, in a Worcester, Mass., bankruptcy court, listing assets of $696.4 million and liabilities of $2.16 billion. Repeated phone calls to the company's headquarters in Westborough, Mass., and the lone remaining office in Oregon were not returned. However, Bill Stuat, who oversees technical maintenance for Southern Oregon, said there are regional and state technical managers and six technicians keeping the system maintained. Debbie Grenbemer was a senior account representative for Arch Wireless for 41/2 years before Arch Wireless closed the Medford office, at 1560 Biddle Road, on Sept. 21, She now operates Medical Messenger, which provides support services for 45 customers, using Arch Wireless' system. "Personally, I don't have many worries about Arch ending service," said Grenbemer, who launched her business on the side a year ago. "They have a lot of state and city contracts, I don't feel customers have to worry." Bill Anderberg, owner of Answer Page, 3709 Citation Way in Medford, and the dominant paging/messaging provider in this market with 7,500 clients, said Arch Wireless hurt itself by taking on too much debt as it raised its market share. "They paid a premium price to buyout regional providers and then gave away the service at rates so low that it was unprofitable," Anderberg said. Anderberg and his partner, Tom Cook of Cook Communications of San Rafael, Calif., serve customers from British Columbia to Arizona and portions of Idaho and Nevada. "Most paging customers want regional coverage," Anderberg said. "They don't need coverage from here to New York." The Wall Street Journal reported Arch's financial profile deteriorated in 2000 due to a rapid decline in the one-way paging business and the company's acquisition of Paging Network Inc. (PageNet), a transaction in which Arch assumed more than $1 billion of PageNet's liabilities. Arch planned to aggressively grow its advanced two-way services such as short messaging and limited Internet access. But the growth in these new services was insufficient due to the slowing economy and competition from cellular services. "We are very pleased to receive the support of Arch's secured creditors," said C. Edward Baker Jr., Arch's chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement released by the company. "Our agreement with them is critical to completing the restructuring process expeditiously. "This agreement and our Chapter 11 filing are important, necessary and prudent first steps for Arch to recapitalize the company, improve our financial condition and create the opportunity for long-term growth." Whether the company rebounds or falls by the wayside, local customers will have to rely on toll-free numbers for questions and freight shippers for replacement equipment. "The size of the pie may not be growing," Anderberg said, "but our share has certainly been growing." The courts and customer patience will determine how much of the pie Arch loses. Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.