Cricket Wireless - History

History

  • Leap launched Cricket Wireless first market in Chattanooga, TN on March 17, 1999.
  • 2003: Cricket's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
  • 2004: Cricket's parent company emerged from bankruptcy.
  • May 5, 2005: Cricket customers now have the option of roaming outside of their home market with "Travel Time".
  • September 4, 2007: Competing carrier MetroPCS announced a $5.3 billion bid to merge with Leap Wireless . Leap informally rejected the bid less than two weeks later. MetroPCS officially withdrew the bid less than two months later, on November 1, 2007.
  • September 17, 2007: Cricket launched Wireless Broadband Service using EV-DO.
  • December 12, 2007: Cricket agreed to acquire Hargray Communications Group's wireless telecommunications business.
  • April 8, 2008: Cricket launched in Oklahoma City, the first Advanced Wireless Services market in the United States.
  • September 29, 2008: Cricket announced that they had entered into a 10 year roaming agreement with MetroPCS covering both companies' existing and future markets. The companies also entered into a spectrum exchange agreement covering licenses in certain markets, (with Leap acquiring an additional 10 MHz of spectrum in San Diego, Fresno, Seattle and certain other Washington and Oregon markets, and MetroPCS acquiring an additional 10 MHz of spectrum in Dallas-Ft. Worth, Shreveport-Bossier City, Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida and certain other North Texas markets). The companies said that they have settled all outstanding litigation between them
  • November 13, 2008: Cricket launched "Premium Extended Coverage", a roaming partnership with 14 wireless companies to provide Cricket customers with a larger unlimited cellular footprint.
  • February 2009: Cricket launches in Chicago. Making it the biggest market to ever launch since Cricket was formed in 1999.
  • March 10, 2009: Cricket launches in the Philadelphia market, including suburbs such as Atlantic City, NJ and Wilmington, DE, with a market total of 6.3 million POPs.
  • April 22, 2009: Cricket launches phone recycling program.
  • June 23, 2009: Cricket launches in the Washington, DC and Baltimore markets
  • August, 2009: Leap announces quarter 2 reports of 203,000 net customer additions and now have about 4.5 million customers.
  • August 19, 2009: Cricket looking for federal grant for wireless broadband.
  • September 3, 2009: Cricket introduces durable MOTO VE465.
  • September 4, 2009: Merger talk starting back up for Leap, MetroPCS and rumored about AT&T Mobility .
  • September 4, 2009: Cricket testing 10 GB/month broadband plan.
  • September 17, 2009: Cricket to integrate monthly plans into PAYGo.
  • September 23, 2009: Cricket releases low-priced CAPTR.
  • September 28, 2009: Cricket upgrades domain name. (mycricket.com)
  • October 1, 2009: Cricket PAYGo headed to Target.
  • October 29, 2009: Cricket adds LG Helix to handset lineup.
  • November 2, 2009: Cricket adds text messaging option to $1 PAYGo plan.
  • November 5, 2009: Cricket adds $25 plan to compete with MetroPCS 30 dollar plan.
  • November 5, 2009: Cricket sees slow growth in subscribers; they added 116,000 subscribers and now have 4.65 million subscribers.
  • February 1, 2010: Leap announced that it was exploring a sale of the company to a larger rival. Talks have been held with Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility.
  • April 13, 2010: Cricket launched Cricket Navigator, a GPS application that offers audible turn-by-turn navigation, hyper-local search and maps.
  • August 2010: Cricket and Sprint signed a five year wholesale agreement (MVNO) that allows Cricket to utilize Sprint's 3G network throughout the U.S. As part of the agreement, Cricket made commitments to deliver minimum levels of revenues to Sprint. Cricket will offer products and services using Sprint's 3G network coverage throughout August 2015.
  • August 12, 2010: Cricket launched operator for the Kyocera Rio low cost touch phone.
  • July 7, 2011: Cricket hits 7 million customers, and 100k muve music subscribers
  • January 2012: Cricket's Muve Music exceeds 500,000 customers in less than one year, becoming the second largest digital music subscription service in the US.
  • January 2012: Cricket Huawei Mercury is named best prepaid phone of all time by PC Magazine.
  • May 31, 2012: Cricket announces the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S will be available on its network, becoming the first pre-paid carrier in the United States to offer an iPhone. The iPhone 4 and 4S were released on June 25th.
  • On September 5, 2012, electronic retailer RadioShack in partnership with Cricket Wireless, launched RadioShack No Contract Wireless service powered by Cricket, the service launched with multiple rebranded Cricket handsets from Huawei including an exclusive white Huawei Mercury Ice and also a feature phone the Huawei Pillar.
  • On November 14, 2012, Cricket launched the 'LG Optimus Regard', its first 4G LTE smartphone available to customers in select Cricket home-markets.
  • On November 25, 2012, Cricket began offering its second 4G LTE capable high-end smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S III, available in select markets.

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