Wired Into Westchester

A fast-growing Texas-based cell phone company is expanding into metropolitan New York and has started the first phase of its planned service to Westchester County in Yonkers and Mount Vernon.

MetroPCS Communications Inc., a 7-year-old Dallas company with a regional office in Hawthorne, this month launched its flat-rate, pay-as-you-go wireless communications service in the five boroughs of New York City and in an area of New Jersey including the cities of Newark, Jersey City and Paterson. As part of its continued Northeast expansion that began in Philadelphia in July 2008, the company also this month launched service to New England in metropolitan Boston and in Worcester, Mass., Providence, R.I., and Manchester, N.H.

In Yonkers, retail-division brokers at NAI Friedland Realty Inc. said they recently completed three lease deals on behalf of MetroPCS dealers. The five-year leases were for 2,000 square feet at 13 Main St. in downtown Yonkers, 800 square feet at 798-800 Yonkers Ave. and 500 square feet at 645 McLean Ave.

Since its start in Dallas in 2002, MetroPCS has established its unlimited no-contract service in more than 300 cities and 14 of the nation”™s 25 major markets, including much of California, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Detroit and most of Florida. The company by the end of 2008 had about 5.4 million subscribers nationwide, a 37 percent increase from year-end 2007. It is the largest unlimited, flat-rate cell phone provider in the nation, according to MetroPCS officials.

Daniel J. Olmetti, vice president and general manager of MetroPCS New York, said the company”™s initial metropolitan service area covers about 11 million potential customers and includes Yonkers and Mount Vernon. The company plans to expand in Westchester in the late third quarter or early fourth quarter this year, reaching north of I-287 as far as Thornwood and Hawthorne, he said. MetroPCS has about 130 employees at the office it opened in July 2007 at 5 Skyline Drive in Hawthorne.

Olmetti said the company by the end of 2009 expects to cover about 17 million potential customers in New York and New Jersey. It has no plans now to open company stores in Westchester, relying instead on exclusive dealers and big-box retailers such as Best Buy to carry its products.

The Yonkers-Mount Vernon service area has a fiber-optic-based distribution network that uses existing utility poles for Metro”™s communications equipment. Olmetti said the metropolitan network, owned and built by MetroPCS, only took about 18 months to create.

Olmetti said its flat-rate, low-cost service plans make MetroPCS “an affordable, worry-free and planned expense for all value-oriented consumers looking to reduce extra spending and streamline their budgets in today”™s economy. With our unlimited service, customers can save significant money each month by eliminating their home phone and having only one phone ”“ their MetroPCS phone,” he said.

MetroPCS offers a choice of service plans that start as low as $30 per month. Customers pay by the month rather than by the minute and no signed contract or deposit is required. The first month of service is included with the purchase of a phone and there is no activation fee or hidden charges. An expanded network for use in MetroPCS”™s nationwide service areas is included in the company”™s current $45 and $50 service plans and can be added for $5 per month on other qualified service plans.

With its affordable plans and distribution network, “We feel we”™re going to do extremely well in New York,” Olmetti said.

The company”™s chief competition comes from companies with similar business models such as Leap Wireless Inc. and Boost Mobile rather than the likes of Verizon and AT&T. “We don”™t try to compete with the large, post-paid carriers,” Olmetti said. “We”™re not interested in being the largest carrier; we want to be the best carrier.”

MetroPCS last year was ranked highest in customer satisfaction with wireless prepaid service in the J.D. Power and Associates third annual prepaid customer satisfaction study.

As of Feb. 18, MetroPCS common stock was trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $13.98 a share, with a 52-week high of $21.86 per share and low of $10.23. The company reported consolidated total revenues of approximately $687 million in the third quarter of 2008, a 23 percent year-over-year increase.

MetroPCS officials said the Northeast expansion will create an estimated 2,500 jobs by the end of this year.