had advised the company on this deal. Lund did not answer that question directly. Instead, as today’s unusual South Texas snowfall swirled around him, Lund replied, “We’re interested in growing, however that might manifest itself… We’re always looking for synergies that can be brought to bear.”
Yet in explaining some background details, Lund also laid out what is, in effect, a pragmatic deal for both companies.
Lund says Pocket has been a formidable competitor since Leap began to build out its wireless infrastructure in South Texas roughly three years ago. Leap acquired the rights to multiple wireless spectrum licenses in San Antonio, Del Rio, El Paso, and other communities in 2006, when the San Diego company spent just under $1 billion to acquire the rights to almost 100 licenses throughout the United States.
The wireless infrastructure built by both companies is based on Qualcomm’s proprietary CDMA technology. So there are no insurmountable technical challenges to combining operations—and the joint venture enables Pocket to combine its 320,000 pre-paid wireless customers with Leap’s 400,000 customers. Leap says the joint venture is expected to generate significant operational cost savings after 12 months.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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