LTE: USA: Cricket will launch its first 4G LTE network in Tucson.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Cricket announced that it will launch its first 4G LTE network in Tucson, Arizona. Cricket is joining the race to offer faster broadband to customers in an attempt to stay in touch with industry leading competitors such as Verizon. 

Earlier this year, Leap Wireless CEO Doug Hutcheson, owner of Cricket, had stated that it would launch its 4G network after it had found a roaming agreement with LightSquared. 

However, Cricket does not plan to provide 4G LTE mobile devices (feature phones, smartphones or tablets) just yet as they were judged too expensive to fit in Cricket’s product catalogue.

 Cricket’s first focus will be USB modems for laptops and desktops and it will start proposing LTE phones only when “they are thin and cheap enough, and have decent battery life,” said Matt Stoiber, Cricket’s vice president for Device Development, according to PCmag.