Leap Wireless may be open to roaming agreements or other deals, b...

in Phoenix. Leap would consider any way to gain scale, and news about that effort will “follow at an appropriate time,” he said. In a separate Q-and-A session, MetroPCS CEO Roger Linquist said his company hasn’t “reached any agreement” with Leap Wireless or other carriers. The quiet period means MetroPCS can’t talk about it, but “no, we haven’t had progress,” he said. MetroPCS is “over” Leap, he added. “We took our shot, and I think most of you know what the story is.” MetroPCS’s priority is to expand into AWS markets, he said. The carrier is “really happy with what we're seeing” in the Los Angeles market launched last summer, said Chief Financial Officer Braxton Carter. Sprint Nextel’s Boost Mobile helped raise awareness of prepaid in Los Angeles, but MetroPCS steadily is taking market share, Linquist said. Leap plans a 2008 rollout of Auction 66 markets, Hutcheson said. It’s also adding 600 cellsites in mature markets that haven’t seen much investment since launch, he said. At 2007’s end, half were up and ready, he said. Leap said this week that in Q4 it added 152,000 subscribers, net, down from a year earlier but better than in Q3. Earlier this week, Leap gave preliminary net subscriber adds for Q4 2007. The growth beat analyst and company predictions, Stanford Group said. Low churn of 4.2 percent helped the results, it said. They beat expectations because “late in the holiday season and after, we saw a pretty large surge in reactivation” by old customers, Hutcheson said. More than 60 percent use Leap as their only phone service, but churn is aggravated by geography and customer finances, said Hutcheson. Leap “is not everywhere” and people often move out of its region, he said. Exacerbating that is the fact many Leap customers are young, he said. “When you're younger, you certainly move around more.” Churn is also high because many Leap customers have tight budgets, he said. Linquist answered a similar question during the MetroPCS Q&A. Churn doesn’t account for reconnects by old customers, he said. Unlike postpaid carriers, prepaid providers often see former customers return, he said.