Leap has big aspirations for 2009

Leap Wireless’s Cricket service is one of the fastest growing wireless companies in America. Yet, like Ricky Bobby, they want to go fast. So fast that while they’ve double their total covered POPs between 2005 and 2007, they’re aiming for yet another POP double. They finished the second quarter of 2008 covering 61.7 million potential customers. They’d like to make that 120 million by the end of 2009. Before the end of 2009, Leap plans to launch most if not all of its AWS markets. These include Seattle; Minneapolis; Milwaukee; Chicago; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; Richmond and Virginia Beach, Va.; Columbia and Greenville, S.C.; Huntsville, Mobile and Birmingham, Ala.; Biloxi, Miss.; New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette, La. This is in addition to the markets they’ve already launched this year: Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and areas of Texas. While Leap will cover a large number of markets by the end of 2009, they’re still missing a few of the larger ones. Namely, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston. Still, this should give them one of the larger networks in America. Too bad there’s not much spectrum left for them to open up to their remaining large markets. [RCR News]]]>