San Diego-based Leap Wireless International Inc. has acquired a personal communications services (PCS) license from the Federal Communications Commission to offer digital wireless communications service in Spokane and will do so through its Cricket Communications Inc. subsidiary.


Leap Wireless spokesman Dan Pegg declines to disclosefor competitive reasonswhen Cricket plans to enter the Spokane market. He says, though, that the FCC requires companies to show progress toward initiation of service within five years.


When the company decides to roll out service here, it will invest tens of millions of dollars in Spokane for infrastructure, Pegg says. It also will operate an office here, as well as retail stores where customers can buy Qualcomm wireless phones from Cricket to be used with Crickets wireless communications service plan, he says.


Pegg says it hasnt been determined yet how many stores the company will open here or how many people it will employ in Spokane. He says that Cricket would employ a reasonable number of people, including technical support staff and marketing and customer-support representatives.


Cricket offers customers a flat, $29.95 a month rate plan, provided they buy a wireless phone from the company. The plan lets customers make and receive all the calls they want within a geographically defined local service area. For an additional fee, the flat-rate plan can be augmented with long-distance service, Pegg says.


The local service area for Spokane hasnt been defined precisely yet, but would include the greater metropolitan area, he says.


Cricket first began offering its flat-rate, digital wireless communications service in March in Chattanooga, Tenn., and plans to offer such service in Nashville, Tenn., early next year. As of Aug. 31, Cricket had 12,400 subscribers in Chattanooga.


This summer, the FCC transferred to Leap Wireless PCS licenses in about 40 U.S. markets, including the license for Spokane. Besides Spokane, Leap Wireless also has announced plans to launch service in Albuquerque, N.M.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Tucson, Ariz.; and Wichita, Kan.


PCS licenses are auctioned to the highest bidder by the FCC. The licenses allow companies to offer PCS service, which involves the use of digital mobile devices touted as being capable of providing a clearer signal than conventional cellular telephones and of operating as a combination portable phone, pager, and answering machine.


Sprint PCS was the first to offer the wireless technology in Spokane, launching its system in December 1996. Other digital wireless service providers include GTE Wireless, AT&T Wireless, AirTouch Cellular, VoiceStream Wireless, and Nextel.


In addition to the U.S., Leap Wireless, which last year was spun off from Qualcomm Inc., offers wireless phone service in Chile and Mexico through two separate companies, Chilesat PCS and Pegaso respectively.