Sorry, Government

Cricket Communications, which has had a rocky history, agreed yesterday (December 1) to pay the federal government $2.17 million to resolve allegations that it overcharged law-enforcement agencies for the costs of carrying out court-ordered wiretaps and and pen registers, according to the United States Justice Department. (A pen register is a device that captures call identifying information transmitted by a particular telephone line, but not the content of the communication.)

A joint investigation by the Office of Inspector General and the United States Attorney's revealed that Cricket overcharged the government from 2007 to 2010.

Cricket was a part of Leap Wireless, which was spun out of Qualcomm in 1999. Cricket was Leap's big brand, providing wireless services. In the insane telecom stock market of the year 2000, Leap stock soared to $110.50. Two years later, things began falling apart. The economy tanked and competitive pressures squeezed the company. Debt piled up. Leap lost an arbitration decision and paid the bill by doling out stock without shareholder consent. That was one of the factors that got the stock delisted by NASDAQ. The stock cratered to as low as a dime a share. Shareholders sued, saying the company inflated the value of its wireless services.

Leap went bankrupt in April of 2003. But it emerged the following year, and on March 13 of this year was purchased by AT&T (originally American Telephone & Telegraph) for $15 a share — a long way from a dime, but a long way from $110.50, too. Cricket is now a subsidiary of AT&T.