Cricket introduces family bundles, cuts price of iPhone plans
The prepaid wireless carrier is stepping up its game as others encroach upon its no-contract business.
- SABEW Best in Business 2011 Award for Breaking News Coverage, Eddie Award in 2020 for 5G coverage, runner-up National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for culture analysis.
Prepaid carrier Cricket Wireless wants to make sure it doesn't get shut out of the no-contract game.
With T-Mobile making a lot of noise about its no-contract plans, Cricket, a unit of Leap Wireless, is offering a family bundle that includes two smartphone plans for $40 each a month. Individual smartphone plans cost $50 a month. The plans were effective starting yesterday.
In addition, Cricket brought its iPhone plan down to the standard $50 price, which includes unlimited calling, text messages, and 1 gigabyte of full-speed data. A more expensive $60 plan provides 2.5GB of data, while the top-tier $70 plan provides 5GB. The previous iPhone plan cost $55 a month.
The family plans require an Automatic Bill Pay in which the account is tied to a credit card, debit card, or bank account.
Curiously, Cricket doesn't mention T-Mobile in its press release. It only targets AT&T, boasting of a family plan that is half the price of what the telecommunications giant offers.
T-Mobile, similarly, doesn't stack itself up against the traditional prepaid carriers. Its advertisements and executive comments largely focus on AT&T.
With T-Mobile and MetroPCS on the verge of merging, Leap is seen as left out of any major deals in the wireless business. Most industry observers believe Leap can't survive in the long term without combining itself with a larger company.