MetroPCS to complete AWS shift in one year

By the time New York City goes live, MetroPCS hopes to be selling nothing but dual-band AWS-PCS handsets, allowing new customers going forward to roam seamlessly between its two networks.

Metro chief operating officer Tom Keys said the operator already has four handsets powered by Advanced Wireless Services chips, which it now sells in its single AWS market, Las Vegas. But Metro is adding new phones every few weeks. “By the time we get to the northeast we hope to have our line-up AWS,” Keys said.

Metro acquired AWS spectrum in several major markets in the 2006 auction, and along with fellow regional competitor Leap Wireless, has been building CDMA networks over the spectrum for the last year. Metro plans to follow up its launch in Vegas with a roll-out in Philadelphia by the end of year, followed by Boston in the 1^st quarter of 2009. The crown jewel of its footprint, New York, will go live before the end of the 2^nd quarter. At that point almost half of Metro’s covered pops will be in AWS networks. Currently it has PCS networks in major markets throughout California, Florida as well as in Detroit, Dallas. Including the Vegas AWS launch, its footprint encompasses 60 million pops, but the three northeastern cities will bring its total to 100 million.

Along with Leap, Metro is one of the fastest growing operators in the country, primarily due to their recent expansion pushes. In the 1^st quarter Metro added 452,000 subscribers, the vast majority of them in its expansion markets outside of its original California networks. Though Leap didn’t have quite the quarter that Metro did, it reported today subscriber gains of 230,000, bringing its total up 3.1 million subscribers, compared to Metro’s 4.4 million.

Like Metro, Leap is turning on its first networks in the AWS band, launching its first network in Oklahoma City in April, and adding three smaller markets in Texas this week. While Metro tends to focus on big metropolitan areas, as its name implies, Leap has traditionally targeted mid-sized to small metro markets. The two are about to go head-to-head, though. Leap officials have indicated that a launch in Las Vegas is around the corner, marking the first time the two operators will compete in the same metro market.