MetroPCS continues to make progress in the wireless industry, and it reported increases in revenue and subscribers for the third quarter.

The regional carrier is mostly known for offering unlimited wireless services for about $40 a month without a long-term contract. This flat-rate plan proved appealing to many customers in the third quarter, as the company added about 249,000 new subscribers. This brings the overall number of subscribers to more than 5 million.

MetroPCS also had $687 million in revenue for the third quarter, an increase of about 25% from the same period last year.

"While aggressively growing our business and capitalizing on the accelerating rate of wireline replacement, we have maintained our discipline of being a low-cost provider and continued to deliver sustainable profitable growth," said Roger Linquist, CEO of MetroPCS, in a statement.

The carrier recorded net income of $45 million, down from $53 million for the same period last year. It also saw its average revenue per user fall to $40.42, and the company attributed this to more customers enrolling in family plans.

The company has ambitious expansion plans for the next few years, and expects to snag 1.4 million to 1.7 million new customers by the end of 2009. It also plans to build out its network to cover more than 40 million potential subscribers by 2010.

MetroPCS and rival Leap Wireless briefly flirted with a merger last year, but the deal fell through. Instead, the companies signed a roaming agreement that lets the carriers offer free roaming on each other's networks.

"We are also excited about the new opportunities now available to us after the recently signed roaming agreement with Leap Wireless. This agreement covers all of our and Leap's current and future markets, and which, when fully built, could ultimately cover the top 200 markets in the nation and would effectively be a fifth national network," Linquist said.