MetroPCS makes $5.3B bid for Leap
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Sep 4th 2007 3:04PM
posted Sep 4th 2007 3:04PM
Are we about to have another national carrier on our hands? MetroPCS has put together a $5.3 billion stock swap offer for Leap Wireless -- perhaps better known for its Cricket brand -- potentially pairing two regionals to create the nation's fifth-largest carrier, displacing Alltel in the process and combining regional licenses to create a rather generous coverage footprint. Of course, this is all based on the assumption that Leap's cool with the plan; at this point, all we know is that MetroPCS sent a nice little letter to Leap's board of directors. If everything goes according to plan, though, and the appropriate regulatory bodies approve, expect the two to close on the deal in spring of next year.
I hope VZ would bid for Cricket so they can get an market on Cricket loyalty bandwagon.
Are u serious Verizon would never do anything like that. How would that benifit them. Have you ever heard you get what you pay for. Cricket is crap. They have no Roaming agreement that limits its coverage to certain area and they target mostly customers with no or bad credit. Now if criket had towers where verizon didnt like in the middle of no where then it would benifit them some. Thats why they bought out Ramcell and that other company. Not to gain customers but to gain coverage and change those towers to evdo. Which was a very good decision.
@ Downsouth821 , Cricket has a roaming agreement with Sprint . Just look at their plans ...
The Cricket Nation 200 $60.00 Plan includes:
UNLIMITED: anytime minutes
UNLIMITED: US long distance (excluding Alaska)
UNLIMITED: coverage in all Cricket markets
FREE text & picture messaging
Voice mail, caller ID, call waiting & 3-way calling
200 nationwide roaming minutes per month
They have a cheaper one for 55.00 bucks with a 100 roaming minutes . Cricket has come a long ways in the past year alone.
@ Bubs. When i say Roaming agreements i meant with verizon. They have no towers where Verizon do not work at so it wouldnt benifit them to buy them. Yeah they might have roaming agreement with sprint. But all that mean is sprint lend them the towers they want not all of them. Im from South Louisiana and Cricket does not work, and then again sprint dont really work either lol. You have to think from a buisness perspective, you think a company that charge 55 dollars for all that can rent all of sprint towers. They would lose more money than they would gain. Cricket has not come a long way I sell more cell phones in houston than u can dream, and everyday i have a customer switching from cricket to a major company cause the service is so crappy, they have to pay at least a 150 dollar deposit to one of the big three.
Even if Metro buys Leap, even if the new company becomes bigger than Alltel and even if it does become "technically" the Number 5 carrier, can it REALLY be considered a national carrier? Sure, it'll have a presence in some areas but the calling card of both individual carriers is unlimited calling in regional areas. That means no nationwide plans. That's a huge deal considering where they DON'T have a presence. As of right now neither company has a presence in NY, LA, Chicago, Philly, Boston or Seattle. And without nationwide plans, MetroLeap wouldn't be able to compete with the Big Boys on the business side. So it might become Number 5 in name, but it'd still just be a rather large regional carrier.
Considering Metro PCS bought spectrum I think they are planning to open in New York, Boston, etc. I think they already opened in Los Angeles. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-metropcs_05bus.ART.State.Edition1.31084bc.html
It would only become the 6th largest carrier in the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_network_operators_of_the_Americas#United_States
This wouldn't cause higher prices, would it?
Otherwise, if this goes through, this is awesome for California. Just about every single market would be covered in California by Cricket/Metro, since they currently are all present in different markets. Metro is just going to cover Los Angeles; the biggest market here.
I'm just surprised that MetroPCS is making the bid. I always thought that Cricket/Leap was the bigger one.
Didn't these companies just sue each other in Texas last year??
Yeah, they did sue each other last year. However, given their past and current executive connections, it's not surprising that the lawsuits were not a factor in this deal going through. See http://www.newsvisual.com/newsvisual/2007/09/valuable-link-i.html