Cricket Communications, a provider of cellular wireless and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Leap Wireless, today announced the filing of an application for federal Recovery Act funding, in partnership with One Economy Corporation. The grant proposal would extend Project Change Access – Leap’s program for affordable wireless broadband service – to low-income residents in five cities.
The proposal to the NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant would build on the success of Project Change Access, launched in Portland, Ore., last fall as a pilot program by LCW Wireless and One Economy. LCW Wireless LLC is a privately held company based in Portland that sells Cricket Wireless service in Oregon, and has grown its business to more than 100,000 subscribers in two years. Cricket owns a non-controlling interest in the company. One Economy is a global non-profit organization that leverages the power of technology and information to connect low-income people to the economic mainstream.
This proposal would serve an additional 23,000 low-income families primarily in Baltimore, Houston, Memphis, San Diego and Washington, D.C. with sustainable, innovative broadband access and digital literacy training. Through a scalable “end to end” approach, Project Change Access would furnish subsidized, low-cost wireless broadband via Cricket’s high-quality, all-digital 3G wireless network and a wireless device designed to work with both desktops and laptops.
Cricket’s wireless voice and broadband Internet services use CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO wireless networks with $40/month prepaid plans that include virtually everything unlimited.
Cricket Broadband provides Internet access anywhere within Cricket’s coverage areas at speeds comparable to DSL. Cricket was the first CDMA carrier in the world to offer an AWS wireless modem. According to reviewers, their A600 USB modem typically delivers REV A speeds on the AWS band, or 600Kbps down and 200-300Kbps up.
Project Change Access is designed to help bridge the digital divide for low-income households. In 2009, the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported 35 percent of households with annual income of $20,000 or less had adopted broadband, compared to 63 percent nationwide.
Cricket’s popular $40 monthly plan includes unlimited voice, long distance, domestic and international text and picture messaging, and nationwide coverage, unlimited Web, unlimited 411 and unlimited service to more than 4,600 cities and towns across the US.
Cricket’s $45 monthly plan will also include the additional features of unlimited email, unlimited data backup and 30 roaming minutes per month. The $55 plan mirrors the $45 plan but also contains 200 roaming minutes per month.
Leap and its partner, Denali Spectrum were the high bidders on 100 licenses in the FCC’s Advanced Wireless Services auction (AWS) at an aggregate cost of $984 million.
Leap subsequently bought MetroPCS & Announced a merger, bringing those two AWS coverage areas together.
In January, One Economy and Meraki expanded their partnership with an aim at delivering affordable WiFi to more than 100,000 low-income housing families across the U.S. (pdf) and around the world within the next two years.
As part of the agreement, One Economy is deploying Meraki solutions to low-income communities in every location it provides services to, beginning with major U.S. cities including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Meraki also teamed with the city of San Francisco last year to unwire several parts of the city.
NetEquality, also based in Portland, uses DSL, T1 and fixed WiMAX service to feed their OpenMesh and Meraki units for low income housing areas. OpenMesh uses an open source wireless mesh protocol.
Michael Weinberg, past president of Portland’s Personal Telco Project, which provides free WiFi access to the public, is skeptical of the Leap/One-Economy cellular plan:
“Lack of (affordable) infrastructure is quite often the chief factor leading to digital exclusion, and applying a single closed network, even with subsidized pricing, does nothing to alleviate the problem in the long-term. This proposal is akin to buying people helicopter rides instead of building roads to connect their homes to the highway.”
The Citizen’s Utility Board (CUB) just released a cell phone report showing that 73% of cell phone users could save $300 or more a year. CUB suggested prepaid plans as an alternative to overpaying for wireless. If you’re looking for a prepaid plan, check out PrepaidReviews.com. They rate providers – from the best (five stars) to the not so good (1 star).
Mobile Citizen offers $10/mo WiMAX for Education. Mobile Citizen is the first service provider in the US to offer WiMAX access exclusively to educational institutions and non-profits. They are reselling Clear’s WiMAX service for $10 per month for WiMAX subscriptions to schools and non-profits in Portland, Las Vegas, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Northern Michigan University will hand out WiMax-enabled laptops to students this fall. Motorola provided a full end-to-end WiMAX broadband solution using the university’s Educational Broadband Service license. Motorola’s WiMAX devices will also work with older laptops. The intent is to wireless broadband everywhere, on and off the campus. NMU’s license is restricted to education or government use. The university is already in discussions with some area K-12 schools about assisting in enhancing their wireless capabilities.
Unstrung has a handy table showing the markets that Clearwire, Comcast and Sprint will deploy this year.
Leasing a WiMAX-enabled Netbook for $19.95/month wouldn’t appear to be a stretch for any non-profit institution in the United States. Free WiFi access is available at Barnes and Noble and many community centers and coffee shops. Now there’s a stimulus package.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Meraki Teams with One Economy, Meraki and San Francisco Partner for WiFi, The Open-Mesh Revolution, Cricket Launches AWS Service, AWS: It’s Done, 700MHz: It’s Done!, Rural Telcom: Big Time Consolidation, Be Your Own Fiber Net, MuniFi Roundup, Buffalo’s DD-WRT Router: Trick or Treat?, Digital Divide Initiatives, Bridging the Digital Divide, CUWiN Free Cloud Software, PersonalTelco: Living the Dream, Sprint Buying Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile: $50/mo; iDEN + CDMA, Cellular Data Plans, Expensive Cell Plans: Goin’ Down, Prepaid Phones, U.S. Pays More, Gets Less in Telecom, Meraki Talks Up WiFi Stimulus, Broadband Mapping Grants Awarded, Spectrum Bridge: Largest Spectrum Aggregator, Mobile Citizen: $10/mo WiMAX for Education
