Metro PCS 2010 Annual Report Download - page 16

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6
PART I
Item 1. Business
General
We are the fifth largest facilities-based wireless telecommunications provider in the United States measured by
the number of subscribers served. We offer wireless broadband mobile services under the MetroPCS® brand in
selected major metropolitan areas in the United States. We provide a variety of wireless communications services to
our subscribers on a no long-term contract, paid-in-advance basis. As of December 31, 2010, we had over
8.1 million subscribers.
MetroPCS Communications, Inc., or MetroPCS Communications, was incorporated in 2004 by MetroPCS, Inc. in
the state of Delaware and MetroPCS Communications maintains its corporate headquarters in Richardson, Texas.
In April 2007, MetroPCS Communications consummated an initial public offering of its common stock and became
listed for trading on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “PCS.”
Our web site address is www.metropcs.com. Information contained on, or accessible from, our web site is not
incorporated by reference into this annual report on Form 10-K and should not be considered part of this report or
any other filing we make with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or the SEC. We file with, or
furnish to, the SEC, all our periodic filings and reports, including annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on
Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments thereto, as well as other information. All of our
filings with the SEC are available free of charge through the Investor Relations page of our web site as soon as
practicable after filing or providing such information to the SEC. Copies of any of our filings with the SEC may
also be requested, without charge, by sending a written request to Investor Relations, MetroPCS Communications,
Inc., 2250 Lakeside Blvd., Richardson, Texas 75082.
Business Overview
We currently provide our wireless broadband mobile services primarily in selected major metropolitan areas in
the United States, including the Atlanta, Boston, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New
York, Orlando/Jacksonville, Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Francisco, and Tampa/Sarasota metropolitan areas. As
of December 31, 2010, we hold licenses for wireless spectrum covering a total population of approximately
142 million people in and around many of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States. In addition, we have
roaming agreements with other wireless carriers that allows us to offer our customers service in many areas when
they are outside our service area. These roaming agreements, together with the area we serve with our own
networks, allows our customers to receive service in an area covering over 280 million in total population under the
Metro USA® brand. We provide our services using code division multiple access, or CDMA, networks using
1xRTT technology and, in all but one major metropolitan area, long term evolution, or 4G LTE, technology. We
introduced the first commercial 4G LTE service in the United States in our Las Vegas and Dallas/Fort Worth
metropolitan areas in September 2010 and launched the world’s first dual mode 4G LTE/CDMA handset.
Subsequently in 2010, we launched our 4G LTE service in our Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston, New
York, San Francisco and Sacramento metropolitan areas. We further expanded our 4G LTE services into Atlanta,
Jacksonville, Miami and Orlando metropolitan areas in January of 2011.
Competitive Strengths
We believe our business model has the following competitive strengths that distinguish us from our principal
wireless competitors:
xOur Service Plans. We currently offer our services predominately on a no long-term contract, paid-in-
advance, flat-rate, unlimited usage basis. Starting in January 2010, we began offering our services using
rate plans that include all applicable taxes and regulatory fees. We believe we offer a compelling value
proposition to our customers through our service offerings that in most instances allow unlimited usage
from within our service area for a low flat rate. Our average per minute cost to our customers for our
service plans is significantly lower than the average per minute cost of other traditional wireless
broadband mobile carriers. We believe our low average cost per minute has positioned, and will continue
to position, us very well for the growing trend of wireline displacement.