Leap Wireless, the parent company of Cricket Communications, a leading provider of prepaid cellular services, today announced their first Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) spectrum operation, in Oklahoma City. It will include approximately 1.1 million new covered POPs, bringing Cricket’s national covered POPs to approximately 55.1 million.
| Bidders | Net total of high bids |
| 1. T-Mobile | $4.2 billion |
| 2. Verizon Wireless | $2.8 billion |
| 3. SpectrumCo | $2.4 billion |
| 4. MetroPCS | $1.4 billion |
| 5. Cingular | $1.3 billion |
| 6. Cricket | $710 million |
| 7. Denali Spectrum | $365 million |
| 8. Barat Wireless | $127 million |
| 9. AWS Wireless | $116 million |
| 10. Atlantic Wireless | $81 million |
| Click here to find out who is backing these bidders. | |
Cricket’s network consisting of 98 cell sites will be fully operational at launch covering the sprawling Oklahoma City area including the cities of Norman, Guthrie and Shawnee and linking with the existing Tulsa market to create one large Oklahoma calling area.
“With the launch of Oklahoma City, we are entering what we believe to be another major growth phase for our business,” said Doug Hutcheson, president and chief executive officer at Leap. “The AWS spectrum that we acquired in 2006 from the FCC enables us to again double the size of our Cricket footprint and covered POPs.
Cricket rate plans range from $35 to $60 a month, and include unlimited anytime minutes, unlimited U.S. long distance, unlimited text and picture messaging and nationwide roaming minutes.
Cricket Wireless Internet Service will be available for $40 a month, customers who also have Cricket mobile phone service receive a $5 discount and pay just $35 monthly.
Cricket is launching its Cricket service in Oklahoma City with a variety of AWS wireless devices including the Samsung MyShot camera phone, Samsung Spex and UTStarcom 7126 mobile phones, as well as the UTStarcom UM100C wireless modem.
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