iPhone is going prepaid. Cricket Wireless gets the iPhone.

[Skip Intro]

Before T-Mobile, in fact.

No contract, no credit-check. $55 mo unlimited everything (broadband data throttled after 2.3 gigs each month).

iPhone prices will be four to five hundred dollars for the iPhone 4 and 4s respectively, then just the monthly fee.

Pretty big news in the wireless industry.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/256574/cricket_brings_iphone_to_its_prepaid_network.html

[shanti]

1. this is great news!

too bad i have another year + on my verizon contract $55 is about half what i'm now being gouged for.

[TheDebbieDee]

6. I wonder if the Wal-mart brand (Straight Talk) will offer service for an even lower monthly fee...

[rocktivity]

2. No thanks -- I'd rather put that kind of money into an iPad

and hold on to my one-hundred dollar, twenty-five dollar a month Android phone.


rocktivity

[RZM]

3. I always got the impression Cricket was a ripoff

Back when they started, their main claim to fame on the street was no credit checks, which I always interpreted as a license to fleece the customer. Plus back then, they allowed cheap local calls but very little long distance.

Same thing with Virgin. They were a total ripoff with their prepay model.

It's certainly a statement on the penetration of smartphones that Cricket now has them.

[Skip Intro]

5. Cricket has come a long way since their early days...

Their coverage was the big turn off when I used to sell their product. But that is no longer the case as they have partnered with Sprint, and can now offer an nationwide network.

This major change made the company a much more competitive one, but the bad name they earned previously still haunts them, as your post illustrates.

They have had Android phones for some time now, and really decent models at that.

But this iPhone deal is going to redefine their brand, imho.

[joshcryer]

8. I think Cricket is OK, the main problem is they won't let you use a Smart Phone without a data plan.

For the longest time they had a special that if you paid 3 months in advance you got a 4th month free. When that was going around the rate for the text / talk plan was $35 a month. This works out to about $25 a month for unlimited text and talk. Lordy knows that I used the heck out of that plan...

...they stopped doing it though.

[itsrobert]

4. Strange definition of "unlimited"

"broadband data throttled after 2.3 gigs each month"

[Skip Intro]

7. Every company throttles.

Verizon, ATT, T-Mobile.

I think the only one that didn't (doesn't? still) is Sprint.

[girl gone mad]

9. Wonder if you can use it with an already unlocked 4s.

I managed to get prepaid service, but basically had to go underground to get it. PITA!

[Honeycombe8]

10. What do people use an Iphone for?

I have a touch cell phone, Tracfone, which is prepaid. I have text, phone. There's a browser, but I've never accessed it, so don't know if it's any good. I have an alarm and some other stuff.

So I'm wondering what magic does the Iphone hold that we regular cell phone users don't have? Is it better internet access?

I got an accessory pack with screen protector, a skin, and car charger, for less than $20.

I bought a phone that's triple minutes. I buy a year's long card for, say, 400 minutes. It loads 1200 minutes into my phone, since my phone is triple minutes. I can load the minutes from the internet or buy them thru my phone instantaneously. I pay about $200/yr. or less. My minutes roll over.