Boost Mobile L.L.C. is bringing its pay-as-you-go service to rural areas, after traditionally concentrating on urban strongholds.
Boost, which is a division of Sprint Nextel Corp. and runs on the carrier’s iDEN network, will begin to offer service in areas that were served by Nextel Partners Inc., which was acquired by Sprint Nextel earlier this year.
Overall, the new Boost markets include mid-sized and rural areas in 31 states, including central Illinois; eastern and western Kentucky; Iowa; Rochester and Buffalo, N.Y.; Nashville, Tenn.; Alabama; Arkansas; Georgia; Louisiana; Mississippi; Hawaii; and Texas markets including Austin.
“The youth market is grossly underpenetrated compared to the national average and will drive future growth for years to come,” said Don Girskis, Boost’s general manager. “Our expansion into mid-sized and rural markets will enable more young people to choose Boost and help continue to drive our record performance.”
Boost contributed 216,000 net new subscribers, average revenue per user of $32.50 and a churn rate of 6.8 percent to Sprint Nextel’s third-quarter results. The carrier reported 233,000 net subscriber additions overall.
A recent report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services predicted that rural carriers will face more competition from national carriers in the next few years, as wireless growth slows and carriers begin to build out their networks and aggressively pursue customers in areas which they have previously overlooked. S&P recommended that rural carriers grow their retail operations and lower their debt burdens, as well as focus their attention on migrating customers to new, more advanced networks. S&P noted that as carriers build out their networks, they will eliminate the need for roaming partners in “all but the most remote locations,” and that small carriers should wean themselves from reliance on roaming agreements for survival.
In a separate announcement, SouthernLINC Wireless, a small regional iDEN carrier, announced it won an extension of its position as the “official communications partner” of the state of Alabama. SouthernLINC said it competed successfully against national carriers in winning the extension of the contract, which began in 1997. Terms of the contract were not disclosed, but the agreement provides the state of Alabama with access to SouthernLINC’s push-to-talk technology, wireless data services and vehicle-location options. SouthernLINC said earlier this year that it will begin offering Research In Motion Ltd.’s Blackberry devices, which will also be available to Alabama state and local agencies.
