According to a report by FierceWireless, Leap Wireless has lost 27% of its customers over the past 18 months. 92,000 of those left in the final quarter of 2013. Who’s to blame? “Increasing competition from nationwide operators“, but mostly: T-Mobile and its MetroPCS brand.

Interestingly, Leap Wireless is being bought out by T-Mobile’s fiercest rivals, AT&T. However, the difference between when the $1.2b bid was made public last July and now is around half a million subscribers. Leap’s gone down from over 5 million to 4.5 million in the space of 8 months. It’s surely looking forward to the day it’s swallowed up by AT&T, on or around the 14th of this month.

“Competition in the wireless industry has increased and intensified in recent quarters, particularly from carriers and their affiliated brands with robust nationwide networks and significantly greater deployment of 4G LTE technology. In particular, we have been experiencing increased competition in many of our core Cricket markets from nationwide carriers increasingly targeting the prepaid segment, including from T-Mobile’s nationwide expansion of the MetroPCS prepaid brand utilizing the T-Mobile 4G LTE network,”

It’s clear then, that with other major carriers adopting similar strategies, and with smaller carriers shipping subscribers, T-Mobile’s Uncarrier movement is working.

For the full report, head on over to FierceWireless.com