Cricket Wireless 2012 Annual Report Download - page 20

outstanding quality, capacity and high-speed data services. We continued to enhance network capacity in many
of our markets in 2012, and 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.
We have deployed next-generation 4G LTE network technology across approximately 21 million POPs in
our network footprint, and we are exploring cost-effective ways to deliver LTE services to additional customers.
We may deploy LTE across up to an additional approximately 10 million POPs in our network footprint in 2013.
In addition, we have entered into LTE roaming and wholesale arrangements, described below, and we may enter
into partnerships or joint ventures with other carriers. We intend to be disciplined as we pursue delivery of
additional LTE services to our customers and to remain focused on our position as a low-cost provider of
wireless telecommunications.
As of December 31, 2012, our wireless network consisted of approximately 9,700 cell sites (most of which
were co-located on leased facilities) and 27 switches in 23 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. In operating our network, we monitor quality metrics, including dropped call rates
and blocked call rates. 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.
Roaming and Wholesale Services
In addition to utilizing our Cricket network footprint, we provide Cricket voice and data services through
roaming and wholesale relationships that have enabled us to offer enhanced Cricket products and services,
strengthen our retail presence in our existing markets and expand our distribution nationwide. We have entered
into roaming relationships with national and regional wireless carriers that enable us to offer Cricket customers
nationwide voice and data roaming services over an extended service area. We currently rely on one key carrier
for 3G data roaming services and recently entered into an agreement with that carrier for 4G LTE roaming
services. We have also entered into a wholesale agreement with an affiliate of Sprint Nextel, which we use to
offer Cricket voice and data services in nationwide retailers outside of our current network footprint. We recently
amended that agreement to enable us to offer 4G LTE services.
Competition
The wireless telecommunications industry is very competitive. In general, we compete with national
facilities-based wireless providers and their prepaid affiliates or brands, local and regional carriers, non-facilities-
based mobile virtual network operators (or MVNOs), voice-over-internet-protocol (or VoIP) service providers,
traditional landline service providers, cable companies and mobile satellite service providers.
Many of our competitors have greater name and brand recognition, larger spectrum holdings, larger network
footprints, access to greater amounts of capital, greater technical, sales, marketing and distribution resources and
established relationships with a larger base of current and potential customers. These advantages may allow our
competitors to provide service offerings with more extensive features and options than those we currently
6