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Cricket, the regional wireless carrier that claims to offer “unlimited” data plans that really are not, has jacked up prices on its wireless broadband plans and reduced wireless data usage allowances.
Cricket used to charge $40 a month for 5GB of monthly usage, $60 for 10GB. No more.
Now the company wants you to pay more for less:
2.5GB for $40, 5GB for $50, and 7.5GB for $60 is hardly "respeKting" your wallet
Thankfully, existing Cricket customers are grandfathered into their existing $40 for 5GB plan, so they do not face the price hike and allowance cut.
Cricket’s claimed speeds up to 1.4Mbps are fiction — in our own tests we found service never exceeding 650kbps, and often averages 500kbps or less in the Rochester, N.Y. area. When Cricket cell sites become congested, as they have in the southeastern part of the city, speeds can drop to 56kbps or less, making the service completely unusable. While web page browsing and audio streaming are acceptable using Cricket, video streaming is not. YouTube and other video multimedia was too painful to watch.
Cricket’s best advantage in the wireless broadband market was its pricing. Customers accepted dramatically reduced coverage areas (don’t expect Cricket to work outside of the city, nearby suburbs, and adjacent major highways), slower speeds, and a “Fair Access Policy” that throttles your connection to dial-up speeds (or less) once you exceed your monthly allowance, all in return for service priced $20 less than most of the competition. The modem is usually free or deeply discounted, and there is no contract requirement.
But at Cricket’s new pricing, consumers should take a look at Clearwire’s new 4G service, Comcast High Speed 2Go, or Road Runner Mobile instead. Clear’s 4G-only plan offers unlimited access for $40.00 a month without a “Fair Access Policy” throttling your service to dial-up speeds, and much faster service than Cricket can provide. The only downsides are the up front cost of the modem and being sure 4G is available in your area.
Clear, Comcast High Speed 2Go and Road Runner Mobile offer 4G service plans with a fallback option to 3G coverage for about $55 a month. Clear and Comcast do not limit 4G usage, but do limit 3G access to 5GB per month before overlimit fees apply. Road Runner Mobile offers unlimited access to both 3G and 4G service.
Cricket likes to claim it “respeKts your wallet.” Raising prices and reducing usage allowances isn’t exactly a sign of respect.
I’m afraid i can’t understand you condemning Cricket for this change. First of all, $50 for unlimited everything is still damn good. And you can still get the $40 plan, your speeds are just lower. Isn’t this what you have been preaching since the beginning? That carriers should have tiers based on speed and not a data cap? Cricket doesn’t do that. Once you reach the limit of whatever tier you’re on, you drop down to lower speeds. I can’t believe you’re recommending Clearwire, Road Runner and Comcast as alternatives to Cricket, especially since you said in the article that… Read more »
I think you are misunderstanding something here. The previous $40 and $60 plans offer the same speeds as the new $40, 50, and 60 dollar plans. The only difference between the old and new plans are the prices and usage allowances. Let’s say you plan to use around 4GB of service per month. Under Cricket’s old plan, you would have paid $40 a month and gotten 5GB of service. Under the new plan, you could spend that $40 and get 2.5GB of service at regular speed and then suffer dial-up modem (or slower) speeds for the rest of the month… Read more »
Grettings fellow victims.I had read in previous posts that cricket will SLOW your internet but not cut it off. That is totally incorrect. For the one time i did use all of my GB, when i first got the broadband, the connection log said ” your device is not activated, please contact your provider” in which i had to reset the internet as a “one time courtesy”.. Futhermore..on to my situation as of now. And what brought me to this sight. 5GB would last me through my billing cycle. I am not a big music downloader or video streaming. Some… Read more »
Hi , im with cricket and those pics up there is what i saw . im a gamer and like to download stuff in steam , and my download rate is not 1.4Mb/s, when i have my full speed data the most its gone is 250-260 kb/s then when it runs out , its 12-15KB/S THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE F***ING MONTH. thats all i have to say…