Metro PCS 2010 Annual Report Download - page 21

11
Distribution and Marketing
We offer our products and services to our customers under the MetroPCS® brand both indirectly through
independent retail outlets and directly through Company operated retail stores. We also sell our services over the
Internet using our own branded MetroPCS® website. Our indirect distribution outlets include a mixture of local,
regional and national mass market dealers and retailers and specialty stores. Many of our dealers own and operate
more than one location and may operate in more than one of our metropolitan areas. A substantial number of our
retailers, dealers and corporate store locations also accept payment for our services and many also perform other
services for us. A significant portion of our gross customer additions have been added through our indirect
distribution outlets. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2010, approximately 90% of our gross customer
additions were through indirect channels.
Our marketing strategy is to create and provide products, services and communications that drive growth while
optimizing our marketing return on investment and minimizing the cost to acquire customers. Our marketing
campaigns emphasize that MetroPCS offers affordable, predictable and flexible service plans. MetroPCS builds
consumer awareness and promotes the MetroPCS® brand by strategic local advertising to develop our brand and
support our indirect and direct distribution channels. We advertise primarily through local radio, cable, television,
outdoor and local print media. In addition, we believe we have benefited from a significant number of word-of-
mouth customer referrals.
Customer Care, Billing and Support Systems
We outsource some or all of our customer care, billing, payment processing and logistics to nationally recognized
third-party providers.
Our outsourced call centers are staffed with professional and bilingual customer service personnel, who are
available to assist our customers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Some of these outsourced call centers are located
outside the United States, including in Mexico, Antigua, Panama, and the Philippines, which facilitates the efficient
provision of customer support to our large and growing subscriber base, including Spanish speaking customers. We
also provide automated voice response service to assist our customers with routine information requests.
Network Operations
We operate 1xRTT CDMA networks in all of the metropolitan areas where we have launched service and we
have upgraded our networks in most of our metropolitan areas to 4G LTE with the upgrades in the remaining
metropolitan areas presently scheduled to be completed in early 2011. A network includes a mobile switching center
(for CDMA) or enhanced packet core (for 4G LTE) which serves several purposes, including routing traffic,
managing call handoffs, managing access to the public switched telephone network (for CDMA) or the Internet
(CDMA and 4G LTE) and providing access to voicemail and other value-added services, base stations (for CDMA)
or eNodeBs (for 4G LTE), cell sites or distributed antenna system, or DAS, nodes, and backhaul facilities, which
carry traffic to and from our cell sites and our switching or enhanced packet core facilities. Currently, almost all cell
sites in the network are co-located, meaning our equipment is located on leased facilities that are owned by third
parties who retain the right to lease the facilities to additional carriers. The switching centers and national operations
center provide around-the-clock monitoring of our network.
Our switches connect to the public switched telephone network through fiber rings leased from third-parties,
which transmit originating and terminating traffic between our equipment and local exchange and long distance
carriers. We also have negotiated interconnection agreements with relevant local exchange carriers, or LECs, in our
service areas.
We use third-party providers for long distance services and the majority of our backhaul services.
Network Technology
Communications between the subscriber wireless device and our network is accomplished by a frequency
management technology, or “air interface protocol.” We have deployed 1xRTT CDMA technology, which is one of
the dominant air interface protocols, and 4G LTE in most of our metropolitan areas. Our decision to use CDMA is
based on what we believe are several key advantages of CDMA over other air interface protocols, including higher
network capacity, longer handset battery life, fewer dropped calls, simplified frequency planning, efficient migration
path as our CDMA technology can be easily upgraded to fourth generation air interface protocols, including 4G