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July 25, 2008

Leap Wireless is putting more and more pressure on the FCC to eliminate its in-market exception to roaming between wireless carriers.

Leap's services are delivered under the Cricket brand, and the company filed an ex parte letter with the FCC urging the agency to lift the exception.

The move would allow wireless carriers to ignore requests for wholesale roaming agreements in any areas where the requesting carrier holds a license or leases spectrum.

Leap acquired quite a bit of spectrum in the AWS auction, but it hasn’t yet been able to build out all the markets and needs roaming agreements with other wireless carriers to fill in the gaps until those markets can be launched sometime later this year.

In their filings with the FCC, nationwide carriers have argued that they should not be forced to allow roaming on the networks in which they have invested so much and use to their competitive advantage when talking about superior network coverage.

Leap reiterated that problems with the in-market exception are not confined to AWS and 700 MHz bands but include other spectrum as well.

Among the reasons it cites for lifting the exception: There’s no evidence that automatic roaming leads to decreased build-outs. Over the past two years, Leap and its subsidiaries have spent an average 47 percent of service revenues on capital expenditures, which includes expanding the network.

Leap has said the roaming issue needs to be resolved before any merger talks between Verizon Wireless and Alltel is approved.

Leap added that it is "hypocritical" for AT&T and Verizon to oppose robust automatic roaming rules when only a short time ago, they relied heavily on roaming agreements to expand their networks, and they still rely on roaming agreements today to provide more comprehensive coverage.

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Source: Leap Wireless.