AT&T solidified its no-contract ambitions, announcing the combination of its recently acquired Leap Wireless business with its Aio Wireless platform that will operate under the Cricket Wireless brand.
The new offering will take advantage of AT&T Mobility’s nationwide network, which the carrier claims offers LTE services to more than 280 million potential customers. That footprint is the same as was offered by Aio Wireless, which launched – and rapidly expanded – just last year, but substantially larger than 21 million customers covered by Leap’s LTE service prior to its acquisition and nearly triple its owned 3G footprint. Leap did offer nationwide 3G roaming through an agreement with Sprint.
AT&T was quick to note that the new Cricket LTE footprint was also superior to no-contract offerings from T-Mobile US through its MetroPCS service and through the various offerings from Sprint. AT&T also committed to deploying LTE services using unused Leap spectrum “within 90 days or 12 months” of the deal’s closing; and to build out LTE services in six south Texas markets within 18 months.
Rate plans will begin at $25 per month for unlimited domestic voice calling and text messaging, with customers able to add 500 megabytes of un-throttled data for an additional $15 per month, 2.5 gigabytes of data for $50 per month and 5 GB of data for $60 per month. Customers that sign up for the company’s “auto pay” service save $5 per month, while customers on the $50 and $60 per month plan also receive unlimited text messaging to 35 international markets. AT&T said it will offer “certain rate plans” targeting “value-conscious” and government-subsidized Lifeline customers.
Customers can also take advantage of Aio Wireless’ Group Save multi-line discount program that could total up to $90 per month. The discount begins on the second line of service, which receives a $10 per month discount; the third line receives a $20 per month discount; and the fourth and fifth lines receive $30 per month discounts.
As for converting over the approximately 4.5 million Cricket customers that remained, AT&T said it remains committed to that conversion process over the next 18 months. Once migrated, AT&T plans to begin re-farming Leap’s 1.9 GHz and 1.7/2.1 GHz spectrum holdings to support its growing LTE network. AT&T noted that a majority of Leap’s spectrum holdings covering 138 million pops across 35 states was complementary to its own spectrum portfolio.
Leap’s last quarterly financial report, which was for the fourth quarter of last year, showed massive customer defections and increased operational difficulties. Leap placed some of the blame on increased competition across the wireless space, with particular mention of T-Mobile US’ MetroPCS operations.
AT&T has said it plans to further target the no-contract space following the Leap deal, integrating Aio Wireless and continuing with its GoPhone product that it inherited from its Cingular Wireless operations. AT&T Mobility said it lost 50,000 prepaid customers during the first quarter of this year, which was a year-over-year improvement.
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