PhillyDeals: Pay-as-you-go phone companies seek to expand in Phila.

Philadelphia is the front line for the competitive, recession-fed business of pay-as-you-go mobile phones.

"Philly is the largest market in the U.S. where you have the three biggest prepaid-mobile companies all competing together - Boost, Cricket and MetroPCS," says Sean Glisson, spokesman for Irvine, Calif.-based Boost Mobile. "Las Vegas is No. 2."

Boost, an arm of Sprint Nextel Corp.'s national system, sells phones through Jack Huston's VIP Wireless Inc., a 55-store chain based in Bensalem, among other retailers.

Cricket Communications Inc., owned by San Diego-based Leap Wireless International Inc., hired 250 to staff more than 20 Philadelphia-area stores this winter. They officially opened this week.

MetroPCS Communications Inc., of Richardson, Texas, hired 100 for nine Philadelphia stores last year and said it would keep adding locations as sales build.

Cricket and MetroPCS have engaged in on-again, off-again merger talks, which, Glisson said, is why they don't compete head-to-head in all markets. But they're both claiming Philadelphia.

The prepaid phone companies also compete with cheap-phone providers such as Mexican-owned TracFone and British-owned Virgin Mobile, whose customers buy minutes instead of months.

Why now? The mainstream U.S. cell-phone business, dominated by big companies such as Verizon and AT&T that sign users to long-term contracts, "is a mature market. Anybody that wants one, has one," said Boost's Glisson.

"To grow, companies have to go after young people, people who haven't been creditworthy, and people entering the country," Glisson said. "The prepaid business is ideal for all three. We're seeing surprising growth in a poor economic market."

"We target household incomes of $50,000 and under. But these days everyone's interested in saving money. About 20 percent of our base [earns] above $50,000," Cricket regional manager Andy Cook told me. "Consumers win. Competition does affect pricing, not just in Philly, but in all markets where there are multiple choices of service providers."

An Ohio firm called RecruitMilitary L.L.C. plans a job fair oriented to armed forces veterans tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Citizens Bank Park. There will be 35 government and private-sector employers, including Amtrak, the federal Border Patrol, Coca-Cola Bottling, the Defense Supply Center, Eaton Corp., the FBI, and Nixon Uniform Service, among others.

RecruitMilitary is owned and run by Drew Myers, a former Marine Corps artillery officer, who is based in Columbus, Ohio. The company's senior vice president is former Navy officer Matt Murphy, of Phoenixville.

Employers go to the fairs "looking for military folks who are separating [from the service], veterans looking for jobs, and their spouses," said Randy Plunkett, director of military affairs for DeVry University, a national, for-profit college Plunkett says has hired 50 instructors and staff at past RecruitMilitary events.

Some 800 job-seekers are preregistered for the event; admission is free and not limited to veterans. Plunkett says DeVry likes to hire Iraq veterans: "They come back with a mature attitude. Their attitudes are positive. They are relentless. They realize they don't have time to waste."

A deal's a deal, reluctant Dow Chemical Co. agreed Monday, as Philadelphia's Haas family and other investors got Dow to take Rohm & Haas off their hands - for $15 billion, or $78 a share. That was the price agreed on when the deal was made last summer, but not everyone comes out equal.

Who wins: The Haases and others who acquired Rohm shares long ago. Dow's bankers, who get to finance the deal at higher interest rates. And maybe Dow, long-term, if it can hang on to lucrative parts of its expensive acquisition.

Who loses: Dow shareholders, at least for now. Rohm & Haas people in Philadelphia, who were supposed to run the companies' combined specialty-chemical businesses but might never get that chance because Dow almost certainly will have to cut expenses.

Who might win: John Paulson, the hedge-fund manager who bet big on the deal going through. When share values fell, Dow took him up on his offer to help finance the closing. Though we bet he's hedged his position.