Shenandoah Telecommunications (News - Alert) Company announced today that it’s entered an asset purchase agreement to acquire certain cable assets serving customers in Virginia and West Virginia from Rapid Communications, LLC.

 

The sale is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close prior to the end of 2008, according to the companies.

 

The purchase includes approximately 17,650 customers located in 50 franchise areas primarily clustered around Covington, Virginia and Summersville and Weston, West Virginia.

 

The acquisition is part of Shentel’s plans for a major consolidation and upgrade of the cable networks over the next few years to be able to offer its customers in smaller communities expanded triple play services including High Definition TV, Video on Demand, High Speed Internet and Voice, according to the company.

 

The holding company says it provides a broad range of telecommunications services through its operating subsidiaries.

 

Shentel’s operating subsidiaries provide local and long distance telephone, Internet and data services, cable television, wireless voice and data services, alarm monitoring, and telecommunications equipment, along with many other associated solutions in the Mid-Atlantic.

 

The company announced financial and operating results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30. For the quarter ended June 30, 2008, net income was $7.3 million compared to $5.9 million in second quarter 2007, according to the company. Total revenues for second quarter 2008 were $39.1 million, compared to $35.1 million for the same quarter in 2007, an increase of 12 percent, company officials say. Second quarter operating expenses increased to $26.8 million in 2008 from $25.4 million in 2007.

 

The increase in revenues is primarily a result of a larger base of PCS subscribers, while the increase in operating expenses results from costs associated with improving and expanding our PCS network, company officials say. Operating income for the quarter was $12.4 million, an increase of $2.6 million from second quarter 2007.

 

“We are very pleased with our second quarter results. Despite a difficult economic climate, we’ve had solid growth in PCS subscribers and revenues, and have accelerated our PCS network development plans to expand our network footprint and subscriber access to high-speed data services so that most of our customers will have access by year-end 2008. We expect these services to be major drivers of future revenue growth,” said Christopher E. French, president and chief executive officer in a statement.