Cricket signs agreement with Lightsquared for LTE

MetroPCS, Cricket is taking it slow on the 4G LTE front. We learned that they’ll build out a network and will roll out in test markets by the end of 2011. Even then, as we learned with Metro, it will take time to roll out to each market. Furthermore, they can’t cover markets where they don’t have spectrum. That’s where Lightsquared comes into play. We’ve seen them before, in connection with MetroPCS. They provide wholesale access to LTE services, which they complement with satellite coverage. The agreement should allow Cricket to build a fuller LTE network. Hopefully this news means that Cricket will be rolling out 4G relatively soon. They’ve got plenty of competition ahead of them. ]]>