VIDEO INTERVIEW: With the might of AT&T behind it, Cricket Wireless’ president John Dwyer is confident the company will emerge at the “forefront” of future 5G developments in the highly competitive US prepaid segment.

Cricket, which fell under the AT&T umbrella as part of AT&T’s $1.2 billion acquisition of Leap Wireless in 2014, is the second largest prepaid player in the US, behind T-Mobile’s MetroPCS.

Speaking at the recent GSMA Mobility Live event in Atlanta, Dwyer was bullish about the company’s future prospects, with AT&T allowing it “to invest aggressively in a growing marketplace”, as he talked up the future opportunities in the US prepay segment.

While the rise of the smartphone and increased data usage led to an increase in contract subscriptions over prepay, a revolution that started in 2011, Dwyer now sees this as an opportunity, as operators begin to expand away from traditional services.

“The way we go to market is now all around the smartphone,” he said. “We have seen with AT&T and other players, the emergence of the integrated carrier, serving a much broader array of services. For us, the opportunity lies in the prepay segment and the smartphone, and we are very much focused on that.”

Dwyer further spoke of the benefits of being part of the “AT&T family” and how 5G will drive the prepay segment. Click here to watch.