Leap Wireless heads east

If there is still any notion that Leap Wireless is a small-and mid-sized market wireless operator, it will be dispelled tomorrow. Leap will launch its Cricket Communications service in Philadelphia on Tuesday, making the City of Brotherly Love the second major market in a month to go live in the Leap footprint.

Last month, Leap launched Cricket in Chicago, filling in the biggest metropolitan gap in its growing Midwest footprint. In the coming year, Leap will continue rolling further east into the mid-Atlantic, using spectrum it acquired in the 2006 Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) auction. In addition to licenses in Philadelphia, Leap has spectrum covering Baltimore and Washington, DC. Leap also owns a regional license covering the upper Midwest and AWS spectrum in other individual markets, such as New Orleans and Seattle.

Leap’s move toward the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast has been aided by its reciprocal roaming agreement with MetroPCS. Metro recently launched in Boston and NYC using its own AWS spectrum, giving Leap customers on roaming plans access to many of the eastern seaboard’s major markets. In Philadelphia though, the two operators will be competitors. Philadelphia, where Metro launched last year, is one of the few areas where Leap and Metro have footprint overlap, the other major market being Las Vegas.

Leap’s launch Tuesday will cover not just metro Philadelphia but the surrounding suburbs in New Jersey and the Delaware valley, extending to Wilmington, Del., where Leap also acquired licenses. Leap is opening 20 retail stores in the area and will sell its service through 365 independent retailers. The launch adds 6.5 million points of presence to Leap’s coverage area, bringing its nationwide total to 83.8 million.

Leap and Metro haven’t just grown through expansion but in their established markets. Their brand of all-you-can-eat low-cost service plans have started to take hold, leading other operators to emulate them. In the last quarter, both Leap and Metro reported significant subscriber growth despite the bad economic climate, and Leap is forecasting 1.5 million new subscribers in 2009, an incredible growth spurt considering its subscribers numbered only 3.84 million at the end of the year.