Yes, you can burn through your 2GB this month with a speedy new phone
Plenty of Cricket Wireless subscribers are getting a speed boost starting today. Furthermore, more customers on the AT&T-owned prepaid carrier will be able to take advantage of even faster speeds… if they only just buy a new phone.
The company has limited most customers’ LTE download speeds to just 8Mbps for the longest time. Now, that speed cap has been lifted for those on the 2GB ($30/mo. for a single line), 10GB ($40), and Unlimited ($55) tiers. Furthermore, these customers will also now be able to access AT&T’s 5G network — nationwide low-band and “5G+” millimeter wave in limited locations — bringing these plans in line with the Unlimited + 15GB Mobile Hotspot ($60/mo.) selection. This does mean that most of them will need to purchase a new device to take advantage of the next-gen grid, but at least there will be 13 phones to choose from unlike just the one that was available when the Unlimited + 15GB Mobile Hotspot plan was updated last year to include 5G access. As always, speeds may be slowed at any time for traffic management.
This move brings the carrier up to par with Metro by T-Mobile which opened up 5G to customers of its three plans (though it prioritizes traffic management based on customers’ monthly usage above 35GB) and Verizon’s Visible which has always offered a single unlimited plan though it capped speeds to 5Mbps for months. That practice ended well before it incorporated 5G sometime earlier this year.
Cricket is celebrating a gain of 2 million subscribers in about 2½ years, now boasting 12.4 million in its ranks. AT&T’s own-brand prepaid division sports roughly 7 million subscribers.
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