Western Wireless Completes Acquisition of Triad Cellular, Acquisition Adds More Than 55,000 to Company's Growing Subscriber Base

Business Wire, Nov 3, 1997

ISSAQUAH, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 3, 1997--Western Wireless Corp. (NASDAQ: WWCA), a leading provider of cellular and personal communications services (PCS), announced today that it has acquired the assets of Menlo Park, Calif.-based Triad Cellular Corp. and affiliated entities (Triad) including all of the company's cellular properties and related assets.

A definitive agreement to acquire Triad Cellular was announced in April of this year.

The acquisition adds 12 Rural Service Area (RSA) licenses covering approximately 1 million persons in Texas, Oklahoma, Utah and Minnesota to Western Wireless' geographical footprint. These markets add over 55,000 subscribers to the Western Wireless subscriber base. Western Wireless paid Triad $184.6 million in cash and 1.6 million shares of Western Wireless Class A Common Stock.

"We believe that cellular technology is the singular best way to deliver wireless communications to the vast rural areas in the United States and that PCS is the solution for delivering wireless services in the urban areas," said John W. Stanton, chairman and chief executive officer of Western Wireless. "This acquisition reinforces our strategy and adds to our coverage area for cellular customers."

Western Wireless has acquired Triad cellular RSAs including: Oklahoma 7 and 8; Texas 1, 2, 4 and 5; Utah 3, 4, and 6; and Minnesota 7, 8, and 9. The company will continue to market its services under the Cellular Oner brand name in these areas. Related assets Western Wireless has also acquired include all of the technical systems in the markets and certain adjacent and overlapping PCS licenses.

"The Triad employees who will be joining Western Wireless have extensive knowledge of these local markets," said Stanton. "Their knowledge combined with Western Wireless' marketing, customer service and operational strengths will provide the highest quality of service possible to our customers."

Triad is majority owned by the Boston-based venture capital group Media/Communications Partners.

Based in Issaquah, Wash., Western Wireless Corp. is a leading provider of wireless communications services in the western United States. It currently offers cellular service marketed under the Cellular One(R) name in 15 western states and provides PCS marketed under the VoiceStream(R) Wireless name in seven U.S. metropolitan markets. Western Wireless' PCS network uses the globally dominant GSM technology. In 1997, Western Wireless was granted PCS licenses for 100 new markets through the Federal Communications Commission's D- and E-block auctions, and was granted an additional seven markets in the F-block auction through its partnership with Cook Inlet PCS. As a result, Western Wireless' combined cellular and PCS licenses, along with its investment in Cook Inlet PCS, cover 59 percent of the land in the continental United States plus the Hawaiian Islands. -0- http://www.kmcomm.inter.net

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