Cricket Wireless 2011 Annual Report Download - page 16

We strategically select our direct and indirect retail locations to enable us to focus on our target customer
demographic and provide the most efficient market coverage while minimizing cost. As a result of our product
design and cost efficient distribution system, we have been able to acquire new customers at average costs that
we believe are significantly lower than most traditional wireless carriers. We have entered into agreements with
other wireless carriers to provide Cricket customers with nationwide voice and data roaming services over an
extended service area covering approximately 289 million POPs. In addition, we have entered into a wholesale
agreement which we use to offer Cricket services in nationwide retailers outside of our current network footprint.
We believe that these arrangements will enable us to continue to strengthen and expand our direct and indirect
distribution channels.
We are focused on building and maintaining brand awareness in our markets and improving the productivity
of our distribution system. We combine mass and local marketing strategies to build brand awareness for Cricket
service within the communities we serve. In order to reach our target segments, we advertise primarily on
television, radio and online and also use out-of-home marketing (such as billboards). We also maintain the
Cricket website (www.mycricket.com) for informational, e-commerce and customer service purposes. As a result
of these strategies, we believe that our marketing and advertising expenditures are generally much lower than
those of traditional wireless carriers.
Network and Operations
We believe our success depends on operating a network that provides our customers with high-quality
coverage, capacity and data speeds and that can be readily upgraded to support enhanced capacity. As a result,
we have deployed a high-quality CDMA2000®1xRTT, or CDMA 1xRTT, and CDMA2000 1xEV-DO, or
EvDO, network in each of our markets that delivers outstanding quality, capacity and high-speed data services. In
operating our network, we monitor quality metrics, including dropped call rates and blocked call rates.
We design our networks to provide voice and data services at costs that we believe are substantially lower
than most traditional wireless carriers. Our networks provide high quality, concentrated coverage and capacity in
local population centers serving the areas where our customers live, work and play. During 2011, we continued
to enhance network capacity in many of our markets. We plan to continue to maintain and develop our network
and other business assets to allow us to continue to provide customers with high-quality service. In addition, we
currently plan to deploy next-generation LTE network technology across approximately two-thirds of our current
network footprint over the next two to three years. We successfully launched a commercial trial market in late
2011 and plan to cover up to approximately 25 million POPs with LTE in 2012.
As of December 31, 2011, our wireless network consisted of approximately 9,500 cell sites (most of which
are co-located on leased facilities) and 32 switches in 26 switching centers. A switching center serves several
purposes, including routing calls, supervising call originations and terminations at cell sites, managing call
handoffs and access to and from the public switched telephone network, or PSTN, and other value-added
services. These locations also house platforms that enable services including text messaging, picture messaging,
voice mail and data services. We rely upon a network operations center, or NOC, to provide dedicated
monitoring capabilities 24 hours a day, every day of the year, to ensure highly reliable service to our customers.
We have outsourced the operation of our NOC to a third party in order to improve monitoring and reporting
functions and to reduce costs associated with these operations.
Our switches connect to the PSTN through fiber rings leased from third party providers which facilitate the
first leg of origination and termination of traffic between our equipment and both local exchange and long
distance carriers. We have negotiated interconnection agreements with relevant exchange carriers in each of our
markets. We use third party providers for long distance services and for backhaul services carrying traffic
between our cell sites and switching centers.
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