LOS ANGELES (AP) — AT&T Inc. said Friday that it has agreed to acquire Leap Wireless International Inc., the pre-paid cellphone carrier that operates under the Cricket brand, for about $1.19 billion in cash, or $15 a share.
The purchase gives the nation's No. 2 cellphone carrier a leg-up in serving customers who prefer not to have lengthy contracts. Leap's Cricket service has 5 million subscribers who pay monthly without a contract. The deal also gives AT&T the right to use Leap's unused airwaves — also known as spectrum — to expand its network.
Spectrum is the lifeblood of the wireless industry and the fight to grab more of it has spurred a recent wave of consolidation.
In April, No. 4 T-Mobile completed its acquisition of pre-paid carrier MetroPCS. The company plans to shut down the MetroPCS network in two years, so it can use the airwaves to improve coverage and data speeds. On Wednesday, Japan's SoftBank Corp. completed its $21.6 billion takeover of No. 3 Sprint Corp, which helped Sprint acquire Clearwire Corp. and its spectrum holdings a day earlier.