Cricket Communications, a regional wireless carrier selling prepaid service, is going national in an effort to attract customers from major providers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
Starting in October, Cricket customers will have access to nationwide 3G service under agreements the company has reached with 40 other carriers, including Sprint.
Cricket also recently launched two smartphones that are comparable in price and features to top-rated devices such as Verizon’s Motorola Droid X. But Cricket phones are sold without the typical two-year contract requirement since the company offers prepaid, no-contract service. Major carriers also sell cellphones without contracts but at much higher prices.
“This is the tipping point,” said Al Moschner, Cricket’s chief operating officer. “We’re now at a point where you can get from us anything you can get from a tier-1 carrier.”
Cricket is a subsidiary of San Diego-based Leap Wireless, which is in the process of changing its corporate name to Cricket, Moschner said.
The company has generally attracted customers who have a checkered credit history or use a cellphone only for basic talk and text messaging.
But by 2012, smartphones will likely become the dominant sales device for Cricket, Moschner said.
Smartphone users generally pay more for monthly service because the devices are often used for Web browsing and e-mail.
“What Cricket’s trying to do is go after more valuable customers by offering a larger footprint and focusing more on data,” said Donna Jaegers, a telecom analyst with D.A. Davidson & Co. “But it’s hard to just go from the customer base that they have to moving upstream and to get real smooth traction on that.”
Cricket has 5.4 million customers and employs about 4,000 nationwide. In Colorado, the company has 500 workers and 16 corporate retail stores. Its operations hub is in Greenwood Village, where Moschner is based.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209, avuong@denverpost.com or
