Vanguard Cellular Systems, Inc. was a cellular

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

 carrier formed in 1984 by Steve Leeolou, Haynes Griffin, Rich Preyor and Chuck Hagel

Chuck Hagel

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is a former United States Senator from Nebraska. A member of the Republican Party, he was first elected in 1996 and was reelected in 2002...

. It was the largest independent non-wireline cellular carrier in the 1990s. Vanguard was acquired in 1999 by AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless

AT&T Wireless Services, Inc., founded in 1987 as McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc., and now legally known as New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc., formerly part of AT&T Corp., is a wireless telephone carrier in the United States, based in Redmond, Washington, and later traded on the New York...

, which was later acquired by Cingular Wireless

Cingular Wireless

AT&T Mobility LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T that provides wireless services to 100.7 million subscribers in the United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands...

, now the new AT&T. At its peak over 2000 people were employed at Vanguard. Vanguard headquarters was in Greensboro, NC, USA.

Vanguard Cellular Systems operated cellular systems in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida and owned interests in other systems throughout the United States and internationally. Vanguard initially deployed Nortel

Nortel

Nortel Networks Corporation, formerly known as Northern Telecom Limited and sometimes known simply as Nortel, was a multinational telecommunications equipment manufacturer headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada...

 AMPS

Advanced Mobile Phone System

Advanced Mobile Phone System was an analog mobile phone system standard developed by Bell Labs, and officially introduced in the Americas in 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. It was the primary analog mobile phone system in North America through the 1980s and into the 2000s...

 technology, and later migrated to TDMA, also known as D-AMPS

Digital AMPS

IS-54 and IS-136 are second-generation mobile phone systems, known as Digital AMPS . It was once prevalent throughout the Americas, particularly in the United States and Canada. D-AMPS is considered end-of-life, and existing networks have mostly been replaced by GSM/GPRS or CDMA2000...

.

Founder Steve Leeolou is currently CEO at Conterra Ultra Broadband in Charlotte, NC which employs several former Vanguard employees. Haynes Griffin went on to form Frontline Wireless and is CEO. He is also the CEO and chairman of Insect Shield, LLC, another Greensboro-based company.