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Just because AT&T and T-Mobile fell out of love before their big wedding day doesn’t mean AT&T isn’t ready to get out there and start dating again. In fact, they wasted no time in finding another potential suitor. Today, AT&T announced their proposal to acquire Cricket (Leap Wireless) for $1.19 billion ($15 a share).
If that sounds like a lot of dough, keep in mind Leap Wireless currently holds about 5 million customers via Cricket, a pre-paid wireless provider already covering 21 million people in 4G LTE. So, what does AT&T have planned? First off, the Cricket brand isn’t going away. AT&T will continue to expand the pre-paid provider into new markets, giving Cricket customers access to AT&T’s blazing fast 4G LTE network, while helping AT&T rollout more bars in more places, especially in densely populated areas.
As always, the deal will still need an approval from not only Leap’s shareholders, but the FCC and DOJ, where AT&T is sure to get grilled. AT&T expects the deal to complete within 6-9 months providing they don’t face any opposition. You know, like last time.
[AT&T]
This announcement and their big announcment tells me that they are gearing up to deploy LTE on thier 2G spectrum of 850MHZ and 1900 MHZ namely cellular and PCS spectrum and AWS spectrum. THe iphone 5 and HTC one and every other ATT phone/Tablet already have the bands doormit just go to HTCs site and look at the specs for the one. LTE-Advanced will show up on all of these bands also. WIth ATT only have 12% of thier subscriber base left on EDGE/GSM it makes sense that they will start to refarm. Leap adds them the Cricket Prepaid Band which they will take nationwide and unsed spectrum which are complementary to thier PCS and AWS holdings. MA bell is shaping up to have a very nice network with a ton of capacity and SPEED. I have ATT in LA and I must they have been amazing. I havnt dropped a call in years.
Too bad there’s not a decent company running that network.
Damn, those poor bastards
Doubt it will happen. I’m pretty sure the FCC/DOJ are done letting Verizon and AT&T gobble up competition.
Leap is relatively small fish compared to t-mo. I also find it hard to believe at&t hasn’t already ran this by the FCC and DOJ in the shadows before announcing it.
actually believe it or not cricket is actually up there in the food chain
Your kidding right? Lmao.
I live in a town where every time you turn your head you see a cricket store.
Just b/c they are big in your town doesn’t mean they are up in the food chain.
They are more of a regional carrier something like 5 or 6 million total subscribers.
These are never good
“First off, the Cricket brand isn’t going away” sure…for the first few months atleast (then again they are cdma, and at&t is gsm so maybe)
MetroPCS is cdma and T-Mobile is gsm…….T-Mobile bought MetroPCS and will phase them out eventually.
exactly, though there was spectrum to gain from that, here, i think they use other’s networks, so not sure if that would make it easier or not to switch it over
Christ! There was a reason the telecoms were split up 82….
My boyfriend is a Cricket manager and he got an e-mail from the corporate office saying that the deal was pretty much done already, he was telling me this last night, and was really surprised by it…but this article sounds like it’s not official. I wonder which is more accurate. And Cricket, at least in Utah, is freaking HUGE. I am not a customer, I strongly dislike Cricket but I see more Cricket phones than ANY other carrier.
I would give CRICKET another try if they got AT&T’s selection of high-end smartphones. CRICKET’s 4G LTE is already in my market, would be the best of both worlds, provided CRICKET’s unlimited smartphone plans remain unchanged (10 GB of LTE, throttled down afterwards) for $70/month.
I say let T-Mobile purchase them ;-)