Boost Mobile opens first Philadelphia retail store

Boost Mobile opened its first exclusive retail store in Philadelphia on Friday, with all the pageantry of city police middle management and Eagles defensive tackle Mike “PhatPat” Patterson.

The opening came a day after a deadline Boost imposed on itself to correct lingering problems with a delay in its text messaging delivery.
The delays were blamed on the company’s more than three quarters of a million new prepaid customers in the quarter, which beat analyst expectations, according to Sprint’s first quarter financial results.
Boost has led an advertising blitz on the city.
The store near-ish to the Logan neighborhood of North Philadelphia at Broad and Olney is another step in a battle for low-income cell phone users� between Boost, Metro PCS and Cricket, which entered the Philadelphia market in March. Philadelphia is the most populated region with those three largest prepaid mobile carriers.
At Friday’s store opening, Eagles player Patterson, who is still breathing hard after that 98-yard fumble recovery against the 49ers in 2006, presented on behalf of Boost a $10,000 check to the Philadelphia Police Department, benefiting the John Pawlowski Family Memorial Trust Fund.
In February, Pawlowski, who was 25, was shot and killed at the Broad and Olney intersection.
The retail store was developed in partnership with Boost�s national distributor VIP Wireless. The store will sell the company’s complete product line-up, phone accessory items and other merchandise.
There are at least 19 Cricket Wireless-owned stores in Philadelphia, according to regional company spokesman Jeffrey Bodzewski. There are at least 20 Metro PCS locations.