Cricket Wireless announced a new cell phone plan today that includes unlimited 4G LTE data. The new plan makes Cricket the first AT&T based MVNO to offer Unlimited 4G LTE data.
Cricket's unlimited LTE plan also includes unlimited talk, text, international text, as well as full roaming access while in Mexico and Canada at a price of $70/month or $65 with auto pay. Taxes and fees are included with the price.
Cricket is aiming the new plan at current T-Mobile subscribers as the MVNO is offering a $100 bill credit if you port in from T-Mobile. Customers who make the switch must be active with Cricket and in good standing for a period of 45 days to be eligible for the account credit. The account credit will be deposited within 60 days of activation. A $25 activation fee will be required at signup with additional taxes and fees charged.
The plan will officially become available on Sunday, April 17th.
As with all other Cricket Wireless plans, LTE download speeds are limited to 8 Mbps, while upload speeds are unlimited.
Cricket Wireless's other smartphone plans are priced as follows:
- Basic - $40/$35 with auto pay, 2.5 GB 4G LTE data
- Smart - $50/$45 with auto pay, 5 GB 4G LTE data
- Pro - $60/$55 with auto pay, 10 GB of 4G LTE data
All listed plans include unlimited data that gets throttled to a maximum speed of 128 kbps.
Analysis
Cricket Wireless's new unlimited LTE data plan puts the MVNO in rare company, as just 7 other carriers offer unlimited data.
All of the other carriers and MVNO's that offer unlimited data temporarily slow down that data during times of heavy network traffic once a certain amount of high speed data has been consumed in a month. The networks call this data prioritization, a loop hole in the opinion of this website to allow temporary throttling of data while still legally being able to call the plan an unlimited LTE data plan. It is not known at this time whether or not Cricket's unlimited LTE plan includes data prioritization. Since Cricket's download speeds are already capped, it's possible their new unlimited plan will not include data prioritization.
Those that require unlimited data with top notch coverage will find Cricket Wireless to be of great value. Unlimited data plans on other networks range in price from $55 to $100/month.
For more on Cricket Wireless, or to see how they stack up against the competition, visit the BestMVNO cell phone plan comparison page.
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