Cricket announced that it will launch its first 4G LTE network in Tucson, Arizona. Cricket is joining the race to offer faster broadband to customers in an attempt to stay in touch with industry leading competitors such as Verizon. Earlier this year, Leap Wireless CEO Doug Hutcheson, owner of Cricket, had stated that it would launch its 4G network after it had found a roaming agreement with LightSquared. However, Cricket does not plan to provide 4G LTE mobile devices (feature phones, smartphones or tablets) just yet as they were judged too expensive to fit in Cricket’s product catalogue. Cricket’s first focus will be USB modems for laptops and desktops and it will start proposing LTE phones only when “they are thin and cheap enough, and have decent battery life,” said Matt Stoiber, Cricket’s vice president for Device Development, according to PCmag.
Another issue that Cricket is currently facing is LightSquared’s signal interference with GPS signals, which has postponed the implementation of its ambitious 4G network. LightSquared claims to have a back-up plan, but the FCC believes that the problem is not yet solved. Due to its dependence on the LightSquared network, Cricket’s 4G intentions are suffering a major drawback at the moment. However, the company supports LightSquared and believes in 2012 as an achievable horizon for its first 4G LTE commercial products. Criket also has roaming agreements with other 4G network providers and can always decide to choose other local or rural operators.
Why Cricket chose Tucson, Arizona as its first 4G LTE market is not a surprise either. 4G LTE networks from competitors are already all over the place and bigger markets than Tucson can get very competitive (like San Diego, a hub of wireless technology). But Tucson is not a small market and has a little lower competition (MetroPCS and Sprint 4G are not available there, for instance). Also, Tucson is still in driving distance from San Diego where Cricket’s headquarters is located.
Cricket’s expansion plan is taking shape too. The information was released by one of Cricket’s engineers that the company was targeting Las Vegas, Philadelphia and Phoenix as its next potential markets.
Cricket is finally joining the 4G LTE race while the main operators are already expanding their networks over great markets (Verizon is confirming its position as market leader through its very aggressive growth). But Cricket’s positioning as a cheaper operator proves to be successful so far and customers do not expect it to offer 4G LTE right away. Cricket is thus preparing the ground for its future development by following the technological trend without risking the loss of its main asset, cheaper but good quality service.
{ 5 trackbacks }