CricKet Buys Pocket

Looks like we now know how CricKet is going to expand into South Texas. An agreement has been reached, and the owner of Pocket Communications, Paul Posner, has sold the company for an undisclosed sum to Leap Wireless, owner of the CricKet service. So that's why coverage maps seemed so familiar...

I've heard rumors that all CricKet support staff in the Texas area has been laid off, in favor of the Pocket agents, who seem to be doing a much better job at support. Also, HEB outlets will now sport CricKet phones near the front doors instead of Pocket phones. Service prices are expected to rise up to otherwise-national levels now that CricKet has done away with its heated competitor, which had precisely 277,777 customers at the time of the purchase.

A sad day in the unlimited space, I must say. Quotin Posner, "My indomitable Texas spirit for offering great service fell when I saw how much money Leap was offering for my world-class cell service provider. Don't worry; I'll probably use it to buy some sort of spectrum from AT&T or something and start some other wireless business that benefits everyone in Texas. I mean, come on, when AT&T bought Dobson CellularOne, after Dobson CellularOne bought Concho Cellular, I knew it was only a matter of time..."

CricKet is now the larger of the two unlimited cellular providers in the U.S. by a small margin. Their South Texas network should be ready by the end of the month, with Laredo and Brownsville going live today, since little work was needed to switch over from Pocket to CricKet service. Update your PRLs, everyone!

Or not. April Fool's! May Pocket never die!

Don't Forget St. Louis!

No, I didn't forget; CricKet AWS service will also be coming to St. Louis, MO. Jst so everyone knows...

...and no, I didn't know that the Motorola v265 is supposedly a primarily CricKet-forused phone, which only later made its way to Verizon...

CricKet in Texas

In other, 1900MHz, news, CricKet looks to be trying to put Pocket Communications out of business ASAP.

Looks like they've expanded their coverage in the San Antonio area to cover pretty much what Pocket does, except CricKet also covers Austin and Houston areas, as well as "out west" and up into the Temple\Killeen area. Surprisingly, this coverage block is relatively monolithic, tough off the higways between the various cities you're roaming. When I get back to Fredericksburg I'm going to grab a CricKet phone to test the coverage...I doubt it's great for some odd reason but we'll see...

But CricKet isn't stopping here. Their plans have been modified once again to beat Pocket's. Their remarkably low-priced $25 plan gives you caller ID, whereas Pocket's $25 plan doesn't. On the $35 plan CricKet throws in unlimited use in all of its coverage area, which trump's Pocket's by a large amount. On $45, CricKet has the same advantage as on the $35 plan. At $55, you get 120 roaming minutes, something Pocket just doesn't do. The 120 minutes would normally cost $15 per month extra (or pay $5 extra per month for 30 minutes or $10 extra for 70). Or pay per minute at 39 cents. Pocket charges 59, by virtue of its smallness. Though Pocket does offer Call Forwarding at their $35 level, whereas CricKet charges $5 for the feature on the same-tier plan...

Of course, CricKet doesn't compete unless it has to. Elsewhere, what costs $25 on Pocket costs $35 on CricKet, and the $10 price gap goes all the way up to the $50 plan on CricKet. The $55 plan is still the $45 ($35 on Pocket) option but with 100 minutes of roaming, and the $60 plan adds another 100 minutes of roaming. Personally though, I'd buy a Page Plus Cellular phone and pay less per minute for roaming than it costs on any of the unlimited carriers. Or maybe program Page Plus into NAM2 of the unlimited phone so I just hit a few buttons to switch over to working off the other network.

...and no, I don't know why the Motorola v265 refurb'd phone isn't offered in the San Antonio area but is sold elsewhere...

Anyway, CricKet looks to be expanding further into South Texas soon, on regular 1900MHz spectrum. On the expansion list are Pocket territories such as Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville, as well as totally different cities like Beaumont and Corpus Christi. Look for heated competition with Pocket Communications soon...

MetroPCS and CricKet, Meet Vegas and Oklahoma City!

Looks like 2006's AWS spectrum purchases are finally being used.

CricKet's Oklahoma City coverage, with a whopping 98 cell sites, five corporate-owned stores and 58 other vending locations for the service, will turn into flat-rate cell service on April 8th.

MetroPCS, on the other hand, is already selling their 1700MHz-powered service in Las Vegas, both online and at sixty different retail points, with four corporate stores opening in July.

What's interesting is that MetroPCS has slimmed down their phone lineup considerably on its regular offerings over the last week or so, with a few more subtractions that I saw today. The price on the two lowest-end phones, the Samsung r300 and the UTStarCom 1450 (aka Super Slice), may have dropped a bit, to $109 and $129 respectively, but there were phones as low as $89 before...and the lineup is now slimmed to ten phone models.

At least the lineup seems to be slimmed until you actually try to buy a phone, at which point the three new phone models that are built for the new AWS service MetroPCS has in Vegas show up, for thirteen total models for all "regular" areas and three (yep, just three, but it's a start) for the new AWS area.

There are two $99 phones, the Samsung Spex Bluetooth bar phone and the UTStarCom 7126 Bluetooth-enabled flip. $50 more gets you a 1.3 megapixel cameraphone, also with Bluetooth (the Samsung MyShot, which is otherwise quite basic).  Yes, you'll be seeing these same phones on CricKet (with the possible addition of the Motorola Razr v3s) when their AWS service comes out in a little over a week, and yes I have a hunch about the Bluetooth capability coinciding with handsfree laws or something like that. Plus, if you've got a Bluetooth phone then MetroPCS can sell you another $35-$50 accessory...

In other news, MetroPCS seems to have discontinued the Chinese-made phones from ZTE and Huawei, I'm supposing due to customer non-brand-awareness and rather low quality. Pretty quick run, I'd say, for a phone on the market. CricKet still has the CompCal EZ in its lineup, but I'll bet they'll drop it soon with the quality concerns people have been\will be voicing, in addition to the utter lack of features on the unit. Plus, it can't do AWS.

More AWS news coming on the 8th, maybe sooner but definitely on the 8th, when CricKet launches their service "4 realz" in Oklahoma City...

...WAIT! Looks like CricKet will also be getting into the Las Vegas area cell-service-wise. This will be intersting to watch, since MetroPCS and CricKet have tended to avoid each other when deciding where to put their cell service. We'll see what happens...

Spex and MyShot Info Pages

Just thought I'd pass these on, since PhoneScoop does a good job of making phone fact pages and they just put 'em up for the Spex and MyShot from Samsung. Looks like both are headed for both MetroPCS and CricKet, to be expected since both  have 1700 MHz spectrum and both are unlimited carriers with similar plans, pricing, etc.

MyShot (R430)

Spex (R210a)

CricKet Meets Samsung Spex and Samsung MyShot

One is a basic bar hone, thin and Bluetooth-enabled, for $120. One is a flip phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera for $150. Both are Samsung. Both use AWS (the new frequency that CricKet will be rolling out soon in Tulsa and other places). Both are coming to CricKet tomorrow. Check 'em out when they do.

MetroPCS Gets Blue in the Tooth, plus some Spex

First off, there's a promo running on MetroPCS. Buy a Motorola phone and get a Motorola headset for free. Or get a $50 Visa card when you buy a Moto phone and either Motorola's Bluetooth headphones or their Bluetooth speakerphone. So effectively you' be getting a speakerphone for $30 or Bluetooth headphones for $60...and good headphones at that. Dedent deal if you ask me.

They've also discontinued the UTStarcom 7025, looks like, though their model line isn't going to keep shrinking. The Samsung Spex, a thin little bar phone with AWS (1700 MHz frequency) support, should be out relatively soon, and it seems like an upgrade to the 7025. At least it's thinner and AWS-capable...