Wireless Competition is Red-Hot in South Texas

The weather isn’t the only thing that’s smoking hot in San Antonio, Texas (though at 100 degrees, it definitely qualifies for the classification). San Diego-based Leap Wireless, via their CricKet brand, is duking it out with San Antonio-based Pocket Communications in the unlimited wireless market, and consumers are winning.

Pocket, launched a few short years ago in the San Antonio area, recently expanded to Corpus Christi and the surrounding towns, after securing footholds in Laredo and Rio Grande markets. Their pitch: we’re better than CricKet. Pocket’s ad campaign pulls no punches when it comes to comparing their service to that of the nation’s second largest unlimited-only carrier; Pocket calls CricKet out as a leader in dropped calls, long customer service hold times, and high pricing. Pocket on the other hand says that their network has twice the number of towers as CricKet does, their customer service agents will answer calls in twenty seconds or less, and their cheapest phone is absolutely free after a mail-in rebate, including a free month of service.

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Showdown of pay-as-you-go providers Boost and Cricket

With a slate of new stores, aggressive marketing campaigns and even a celebrity endorsement, fast-growing pay-as-you-go mobile phone providers Boost and Cricket are going head-to-head to snap up customers in the Baltimore area.

Boost Mobile opened its first exclusive retail store on East Monument Street last week, joining competitor Cricket, which started offering cellular service in the Baltimore-Washington region through its stores at the end of June. Both companies also have networks of independent dealers that sell phones and minutes.

“The Baltimore market has always been one of our key markets,” said Traci Jovanoic, Boost Mobile director of indirect sales. “It has been in our top 10 for locations.”

One of the bright spots in the telecom industry has been the no contract phone service providers like Boost, a subsidiary of Sprint Nextel Corp., and Cricket, owned by publicly traded Leap Wireless Inc. The companies’ marketing strategy is to charge one monthly fee for unlimited calling and texting, or a la carte options to build customized plans.

Read more at The Daily Record

MetroPCS, CricKet intro special plans for data-driven phones

Recently MetroPCS introduced two high-end phones. One is the well-known BlackBerry Curve, available on all the national carriers but never before seen on an unlimited provider. The other: an “iPhone killer” Samsung, the Finesse, made specifically for MetroPCS to support the newer, “AWS-band” parts of their network in places like Philadelphia. Both phones, in addition to high prices outright (to be expected from a provider who doesn’t require a contract and provides unlimited service on their own network), require a special $50 plan to quench their hunger for data.

CricKet will also be launching such a plan, albeit as a $15 feature addon, with the advent of their first touch-screen, the Motorola Evoke QA4. The rationale in both cases: if a phone can browse the real web (as the QA4, the FInesse and the Curve can), data usage is going to be a lot higher than a mere “dumb phone” might generate. Read more

Motorola Evoke to go live on CricKet June 3rd

Wanted to get CricKet service, but wanted to get a touch-screen phone with said service? Starting around June 3rd, you’ll be able to do just that, provided you have enough cash on hand. The phone in question is the Motorola Evoke QA4, a luscious slider with a whopping 2.8-inch screen and a slide-out numeric keypad for those who get queasy at the sight of an all-touchscreen unit.

Previously, touch-screen phones could be had on CricKet service, but they’d have to make the jump, via complicated “flashing” techniques, from other carriers, an iffy process to say the least. This one is so far exclusive to CricKet, so everything should work great out of the box, including high-speed 3G internet on CricKet’s relatively new AWS band, which serves places like South Texas and Chicago. Read more