US wireless service provide Cricket is updating its service plans by increasing the amount of 4G LTE data it offers on its entry-level plans.
Paying $40 per month (or $35 after a $5 discount for setting up auto-pay) used to get you 1GB of high-speed data during a billing period. Now it gets you 2.5GB.
Cricket is also increasing its $50/month plan to offer 5GB of high-speed data rather than 3GB.
Paying $60 still gets you 10GB of data, but for a limited time you can sign up for an Advanced plan that offers 20GB of high-speed data for the same $60.
Each plan also includes unlimited talk and text and every plan is $5 cheaper if you sign up for automatic bill payments every month.
Cricket is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) owned by AT&T. Rather than operating its own network of cellphone towers, Cricket works on AT&T’s network.
You can bring your own device to Cricket by purchasing a SIM card. But the company also sells phones configured to work on its network and is offering sales on a handful of devices right now — including the 2013 Motorola Moto G with 4G LTE, which you can pick up for $25 after rebate.
There are other MVNOs which offer cheap or free wireless plans piggybacking on T-Mobile, Verizon, or Sprint’s networks. But with its new plans, Cricket now offers some of the best prices you’re likely to find from any US carrier at the moment.
Parsing out data in amounts is total BS and a continuing disservice to the consumer.
Stupid corporate cash grab
‘Unlimited’ data (and everything else for that matter) forces low and medium users to subsidize heavy users. Stupid data hog cash grab. Pay for your own data.
goes both ways. those of us who have fixed data plans will do everything possible to eliminate unnecessary bandwidth which is advertising. Data hogs cause problems that need to be dealt with however punishing web site maintainers isn’t the way to do it.
What exactly constitutes a “data hog”?
From the Cricket web site … really??????
“**High-Speed LTE Data Access: Cricket’s Basic, Smart, Pro and Advanced unlimited plans include 1GB, 3GB, 10GB and 20GB high-speed LTE data access allowances, respectively. Data use exceeding these high-speed access allowances will result in data download speeds reduced to a maximum 128Kbps for the remainder of the monthly billing cycle. ”
See the whole details at http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cricket-wireless-powers-up-its-all-in-plans-with-more-high-speed-lte-data-access-free-lte-and-discounted-smartphones-and-a-free-month-of-service-300027682.html
It means that if you go over your data plan there is no overage charges, just heavy throttling.
A few important/interesting things about Cricket: 1. It is owned by AT&T. It is the cheapest way to get fully national coverage. The prices are great. You can get similarly priced coverage through MVNO’s that use Sprint or TMobile, but those lack the coverage of AT&T(and Verizon.) Depending on where you live/travel this is either a huge or a non issue. 2. The data is throttled. 8MBS for “LTE” and 4MBS for HTSPA. For me this is a good trade off, as that is fairly fast for most uses. But likely an issue for some. 3. No overage charges or extra charges. Taxes included in prices (this is a 23% savings where I live.) And if you go over you package you either (for free) continue to use data at highly throttled speeds of 128kbs or you can chose to pay $10 for another GB of data. But never an… Read more »
That’s good news. I’m about to switch to the 1GB (now 2.5GB) plan at the beginning of next month from AT&T. 4mbps(?) capped is a slight downer (I have a VZW Note 4), but I’m not a heavy mobile video user so I should be fine.
Now if only they kept the 1GB plan and made it $25 with autopay…
I use Cricket and we have 5 lines on Smart plans which comes out to $30 per line, with the family pricing, for what is now 5GB of LTE, up from 3GB. I now plan to downgrade my line to a Basic plan which will cut my line’s bill down to $20 for 2.5GB of LTE, only 0.5GB less than I had yesterday. The deal is so good I almost feel bad about it. I just recently switched from an old grandfathered in Virgin Mobile plan which was $25 per month and the coverage and data speeds are SO much better now, and it’s about to get even cheaper too! They even gave me a great deal on a pretty nice phone (ZTE Overture), $50 with a $50 mail in rebate I just got back a few days ago. I am so happy with the quality service and unbelievable value… Read more »
Cricket is awesome if your area has good AT&T coverage. Works great in NYC, all taxes and fees included. Absolutely no problems with a Nexus 4 and 5 bought from Google.