LAS VEGAS--Pocket Communications, a prepaid wireless carrier covering San Antonio and south Texas, is preparing to build on its success by expanding its network using Performance Technologies’ SEGway X401 signaling gear, the two companies announced here at CTIA.

Pocket has grown rapidly, acquiring 265,000 subscribers in less than two years, by offering a flat-rate, non-contract service with unlimited local and long-distance calling and text messaging that appeals to a new kind of wireless customer as well as the traditional youth market, said Amir Rajwany, executive vice president and CTO of Pocket.

“We are very consumer-focused; we are very locally focused,” Rajwany said. “But we also reach a lot of customers who have not been part of the mobile industry before. Local small businesses are big customers of ours.”

That rapid growth prompted the need for expansion, and Pocket turned to Performance Technologies for the signaling gear it required.

“We have to keep our costs down to provide this kind of service, and that is why we like Performance Technologies,” Rajwany said. “We are very focused on the amount of services we can extract, and the STP is part of that low-cost scenario. We are expanding our service by using their products.”

Performance Technologies is focusing its product lines on customers such as Pocket that are looking for rapid growth. “That automatically puts a surge on signaling,” said Patt Rice, vice president and general manager for Performance Technologies’ signaling systems group. By designing multiple sizes of platforms, all of which use the same software, Performance Technologies enables customers to expand by moving hardware from the core to the edge of the network without swapping out software and bringing in new larger core pieces as the growth and associated revenue require it.

Pocket plans to continue mining the available market in San Antonio, Bronzeville, Loredo and other south Texas communities, Rajway said.

”We know this area, and when a customer calls a local service agent to report a problem, we know exactly where they are, and we can go directly to our map to fix the problem,” Rajwany said. “That’s a big differentiation for us over the big guys. We think there’s still a lot of growth here.”