Cricket, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, started offering the iPhone last year. Initially, it was the only prepaid carrier offering the popular smartphone, but it has since been joined by Straight Talk and other low-cost competitors.
So it’s no surprise that the wireless provider announced today that it’s revamping its iPhone plans, bringing them more inline with its Android plans and the competition. The service now starts at $50 for unlimited everything…
The new base iPhone plan costs $50 per month, and includes unlimited talk, text, data Cricket’s Muve Music service. Unfortunately, you’ll only get 1GB of full-speed 3G (or 4G) data, with any overage subject to serious throttling.
If that’s not enough, you can pay $60 to get 2.5GB of full-speed data or $70 for 5GB, and bonus, both come with unlimited international messaging. It’s also worth noting that all three of these plans include the mobile hotspot feature.
Additionally, Cricket also announced a new family plan today that features two smartphone lines at $40 per line, per month. The plan includes unlimited talk and text, 1GB of full-speed data and yes, Cricket’s Muve Music service.
To kind of give you an idea of where the rest of the market stands, Straight Talk offers unlimited talk, text and data for $45 per month (speeds vary), and T-Mobile has unlimited everything for $50. But it throttles users after 500mb.
For those interested, the new plans are in effect, and Cricket is offering some nice discounts on full retail iPhones. You can snag an iPhone 4 for $249, an iPhone 4S for $349 and an iPhone 5 for $499, after their respective mail-in-rebates.