Leap Wireless may be open to roaming agreements or other deals, but FCC anti-collusion rules for the 700 MHz auction mean Leap can’t talk with MetroPCS or other carriers about it, Leap CEO Doug Hutcheson told the Citi Conference 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.

GENEVA -- New proposals on identification of UHF and C- band frequencies for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) were floated Wednesday, as officials seek consensus on harmonized frequencies before a Thursday deadline. Talks over both bands in Europe, Africa and Asia are in flux and serious obstacles remain, a WRC participant from industry said. Fifty-seven European, Asian, African and Arab countries are on tentative lists of countries that may use 3,400 to 3,600 MHz for IMT, according to a draft document. The list is incomplete, according to the document.

BOSTON -- Google’s rumored 700 MHz dealings with Verizon could signal a “future where the elephants” of wireless and Internet “dance together,” Txtbl CEO and Virgin Mobile founder Amol Sarva told the VON conference Wednesday. Frontline Wireless revealed an Open Access Developers Group at VON that Sarva told us will act as a “powerful counterpoint to the cigar-chomping backroom dealings that seem to be going on.”

GENEVA -- The Association of Andean Satellites is pressing at the World Radio Conference for a three-year extension to get a Ku-band satellite aloft. Brazil supports the request but is getting ready in case the slot becomes available, officials said after talks between Brazil and Colombia Monday during the WRC. Brazil “almost certainly” will use for public service broadcasting the TV frequencies freed in the switch to digital, the Brazilian Minister of Communications said. Disagreement over frequencies used by the U.S. military will be aired, he said.

ICO’s proposed in-car video service will need twice as many repeater sites as satellite radio operators to deliver the high-quality video it expects to broadcast, ICO Pres. Craig Jorgens told us Tues. ICO plans to use the ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) authority given to mobile satellite service (MSS) operators to build repeaters in the 2 GHz band, Jorgens said, noting that the company plans to apply this year for the authority using the FCC’s expedited process.

Cablevision might skip the next spectrum auction, using partnerships with existing wireless operators to add mobile products to its bundle of services, CEO James Dolan said Tues. in an earnings teleconference. “It’s yet to be proven whether wireless is going to be an effective part of a bundle to offer to the home,” Dolan said: “We continue to study our options.” Cablevision didn’t bid in the recent auction and its controlling family withdrew from the process, though industry peers were among the biggest spectrum buyers (CD Aug 21 p8). The company Tues. reported mixed Q4 2006 results, forecasting a slowdown in subscriber additions for 2007.

Significant upfront payments made by cable companies and DBS operators in the advanced wireless services (AWS) auction that starts Wed. is likely good news for the FCC, which wants to see a strong auction, for competition in general, and for equipment suppliers who would get a new set of customers. But the potential bids by the deep-pocketed contenders means T-Mobile, which needs spectrum to stay competitive, must dig deeper into its coffers, sources agreed.

Disney showed off its newest mobile phone service at CTIA. The service, which follows Mobile ESPN, will be available nationwide in June, the company said. The company will offer a package of exclusive Disney content to subscribers, including access to Radio Disney, content from Disney Zone and Vault Disney. Disney will sell customizable “themes” for the phones that will include ringtones and wallpapers, the company said. The service will let parents control the numbers their kids can dial and receive calls from. It will also allow parents to track their kids’ locations using GPS technology, Disney said.

Sprint Nextel said it expects to spend $600 million this year on 800 MHz rebanding and record another $800 million in costs, primarily for spectrum assets. The rebanding expenditures are part of the $6.3 billion the company projects for capital spending, it said in a status report. The carrier also projected revenue will hit $41 billion based on an assumption of high single-digit to low double-digit growth in wireless subscribers. “We have a vast array of competitive differentiators,” CEO Gary Forsee said in a company statement: “We believe our cable joint venture will provide a significant new avenue for customer growth and a substantial time-to-market lead in the race to provide bundled service offerings. Taken together, we are better positioned than any company to take advantage of what we see as a huge opportunity ahead for mobility and data services.”

The U.S. needs communications systems that are “operable and interoperable” during crises, the White House said in a report issued Thurs. White House homeland security advisor Frances Townsend’s report analyzed the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina and suggested how to improve operations.