Cricket wireless to hire workers, start service here
San Diego-based Cricket Communications Inc. plans to launch its no-strings-attached wireless service by mid-2009 and will hire about 2,150 workers in Chicago and the suburbs starting next week.
Of that group of hires, 350 will staff the corporate offices here and 1,800 will be placed with dealer-partner stores, which sell both Cricket service and phones from Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and others. Cricket also has its own branded phone called Cricket EZ, made by Cal-Comp, and sells it for about $90.
Cricket has around 3.3 million customers nationwide and aims to boost that number, despite a tough economy. It started easing into the suburbs earlier this year by opening an office in Rolling Meadows and another near Midway International Airport. Now, it's ready to build its network and staff its ranks through six job fairs starting Tuesday.
Positions range from customer service, sales, administration and technology. See mycricket.com for jobs and interview details.
So why should Cricket jump into the fray, while a number of wireless providers already dominate this market?
"We are predictable. You'll always know each month how much your bill will be," said Rene Parson, Cricket's Chicago area general manager based in Rolling Meadows.
The service also promises a number of all-inclusive packages, such as unlimited texting, picture message, voice and data services for about $45 per month.
No contracts. No credit checks.
"All you have to do is try us and you have the freedom to go elsewhere later if you'd like," said Parson.
Surfing: Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc. this week launched two new navigation devices now available at Radio Shack. The Nav. TN30 is about $300 and offers Bluetooth wireless technology for hands-free calling through the unit. Its mapping features include the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada with more than 4 million points of interest. The NAV TN20 is about $200 and provides spoken street names and directions with more than 1 million pre-loaded points of interest around the United States.
• Chicago-based U.S. Cellular has launched mobile broadband with DSL-like speed through the Evolution Data Optimized, or EVDO, technology. Customers can use their wireless phone or laptop to surf the Web without having to search for a signal.
• Deerfield-based Walgreens has selected Chicago-based Initiate Systems Inc. technology to manage millions of Walgreens' retail and e-commerce customer records.
• AT&T's U-verse added 30 new high-definition channels and international programming for Chinese, Polish, Russian and French. The international packages range from $15 to $35 a month.