UScellular president and CEO Laurent Therivel revealed an undisclosed number of staff had been laid off across various areas of its operation, a move he stated will sharpen its focus and efficiency.

On UScellular’s Q1 earnings call, Therivel explained the lay offs are also expected to boost the company’s effectiveness.

A representative told Mobile World Live UScellular decided to prioritise investments in certain areas of the business which required it to reduce the number of associates it employed.

Therivel touted a reduction in post-paid churn from 1.3 per cent in Q1 2022 to 1.27 per cent.

The operator lost a total of 24,000 post-paid customers, less than the 44,000 reduction booked in the comparable period of 2022.

UScellular ended the quarter with 4.2 million post-paid connections.

Prepaid net losses were 23,000, up from 18,000, with churn of 4.63 per cent down from 4.84 per cent.

Fixed wireless access additions increased 130 per cent to 87,000 subscribers.

Therivel stated 80 per cent of the operator’s traffic is carried over towers upgraded for 5G.

UScellular is in the process of lighting its 3.45 GHz mid-band while readying the network for C-Band by the end of 2023, which he stated will improve performance and reduce churn.

Net income fell from $49 million to $13 million on revenue of $986 million compared with $1 billion.

Service revenue fell from $787 million to $767 million.