AT&T Offers Cheaper Unlimited - Through Cricket

Suika · April 16, 2016

Wait, so... why would we buy from AT&T now?

Cricket Wireless, a prepaid wireless service provider subsidiary of AT&T, has joined the fray by offering a relatively decent plan including unlimited data. I know, I know. A wireless service provider offering unlimited data again - what's the catch? Well, the fact that we have to assume there's a catch says something about the industry at the moment, but I digress. Cricket clarifies that while, yes, it is unlimited data, it will be throttled, although not nearly as severely as T-Mobile when you consume all of their "high-speed data," and faster than Sprint in all but 77 areas in the country. Exact numbers would be 8Mbp/s on LTE service and 4Mbp/s on 4G, both speeds are perfectly fine for streaming content from Netflix, Twitch, YouTube, and services of the like, making it competitive with T-Mobile's Binge On program for the lower data caps.

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There's fine print, and as you might expect it's related to the unlimited data (any time you see a carrier offer "unlimited data," your lie detector should start beeping). Cricket's download speeds on LTE are throttled to 8Mbps, and on 4G it's throttled to 4Mpbs. That's not exactly slow, but AT&T's network is obviously capable of a whole lot more.

Honestly speaking, I'm surprised AT&T, or "Cricket," is targeting T-Mobile so bluntly as opposed to including Sprint in the fray, who just raised the rates to their unlimited plan from $70/mo to $75/mo - again. I'd go with Cricket before I'd go with Sprint, considering Cricket is faster, has superior coverage, and allows me to switch phones at will thanks to GSM, rather than having to call or visit a Sprint store to switch devices, but AT&T doesn't want to capitalize on that.

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Cricket explicitly points out that it's offering a cheaper deal than what you can get on a similar T-Mobile plan. In fact, its press release mentions T-Mobile almost as many times as it mentions Cricket, and it's offering a $100 bonus to switchers.

It's a bit confusing as to why AT&T decided to compete with T-Mobile through one of its subsidiary's rather than head on, as the average consumer still believes in the stigma surrounding prepaid carriers. "Why go to Cricket and buy a cheap-o LG phone when I can buy a brand new iPhone 6S on T-Mobile?" I'm sure the thought will run through the head of many consumers, despite the surprising lack of knowledge that T-Mobile will have you buy the phone at full retail price - just like Cricket.

It will be interesting to see how T-Mobile, and hopefully Sprint, will respond to this announcement from Cricket. What do you guys think? Is this a plan you'd consider using as opposed to hopping to one of the major carriers? I mean, this is technically AT&T for cheaper.

Mew · April 16, 2016

Thr thing with these mvno is that they tend to not include domestic roaming that you would typically get with the big 4.

michaelocarroll007 · April 18, 2016

On 4/16/2016 at 11:49 AM, Suika said:

Cricket Wireless, a prepaid wireless service provider subsidiary of AT&T, has joined the fray by offering a relatively decent plan including unlimited data. I know, I know. A wireless service provider offering unlimited data again - what's the catch? Well, the fact that we have to assume there's a catch says something about the industry at the moment, but I digress. Cricket clarifies that while, yes, it is unlimited data, it will be throttled, although not nearly as severely as T-Mobile when you consume all of their "high-speed data," and faster than Sprint in all but 77 areas in the country. Exact numbers would be 8Mbp/s on LTE service and 4Mbp/s on 4G, both speeds are perfectly fine for streaming content from Netflix, Twitch, YouTube, and services of the like, making it competitive with T-Mobile's Binge On program for the lower data caps.

Cricket will always be 8 Mbps capped at the start where T mobiles unlimited data plan (not one of the 6gb lte and unlimited 2g after that it) is full speed until 25GB. Then they might if your on a network that is overloaded at the current time pick you to be slower then someone who isnt over there cap. In my experience this has been unnoticeable i use to Game,stream,torrent Ect over LTE and use up to 150GB a month. I travel all over my tristate area for my job so i have been in many areas and towers and they don't seem to servery cap you in my experience it was Never under 8Mbps and i would think someone hitting 5 times the 25GB limit is on the higher up list to Slow down but my torrents and downloads were still going in excess of 30Mbps easily. I use to see speeds of up to 70Mbps but average was 25Mbps. Though it is a little less clear what they will do unlike Cricket being Straight forward Unlimited LTE 8Mbps i give them credit just throwing all info out there no ifs and buts. ( If that is how it works out)

Edit:

Read the actual Article and Pricing is aggressive but No tethering at all? Tmobile you get 14GB full Speed tethering and this Quote would worry me in the future "Cricket may consider reasonable network management practices."

I Live in the northeast NYC,NJ,PA,CT, long island area where T mobile is actually a good carrier when i go further away they seem to be okay nothing great but they seem to advertise this has changed and they cover a lot more then in my past experiences has shown but its been over a year since my last bad experience with service.