Cricket prepaid cheap cell phone plans are making some waves

Many people are making the switch over to prepaid plans, which makes perfect sense because you can often save money with this kind of phone plan. One company that has made some changes to make its plans more attractive is Cricket, which is owned by Leap Wireless.

Cricket, like several other prepaid wireless providers, has a few Unlimited prepaid plans that are getting some deserved attention from consumers who are looking to trim away the excess fat from their monthly bills. Every bit helps.

Prepaid phones differ from postpaid or “contract” plans in that you pay for the service every month and you tend to get better rates. Furthermore, you do not have to sign a contract in order to get a prepaid plan. There is no credit check and no commitment save for the fact that you have to buy a phone that works on the given plan and have to pay the monthly fee.

Cricket’s unlimited prepaid plans cost different amounts of money and differ slightly in services as the price goes up (obviously). Here is how the plans break down.

$40 Cheap Cricket Plan -

Unlimited Talk

Unlimited text and picture messages

Free texting to Mexico

caller ID, call waiting, 3-way calling, voicemail

$45 per month -

all of the above, but in addition subscribers get

Mobile Web

411 directory assistance

Premium extended coverage. Subscribers have more flexibility to make calls in wider parts of the country without extra charges.

$50 Plan -

In addition to all of the above, subscribers to this Cricket plan get:

myBackup data storage

30 roaming minutes every month

$60 Cricket Prepaid Plan

200 nationwide roaming minutes per month, in addition to all of the above.

Clearly, Cricket has some cheap cell phone plans (and some that are more expensive), but in order to make sure one of these plans is right for you, check coverage maps and geographical availability.  

It's a good time to go prepaid.

In order to compete with a new $30 unlimited talk and text plan from MetroPCS (which is supposedly only available for a limited amount of time to new customers), Cricket is releasing a $25 plan, thus pushing down prepaid prices even further.

The $25 Cricket prepaid plan includes unlimited talk time and text messages, but does not offer free long distance like the MetroPCS $30 Unlimited plan does.  This could render this Cricket option useless for many people since most people don't limit themselves to local calls.  

If Cricket really wanted to compete against similarly priced plans that offer similar services, it is going to need to include long distance coverage.  Comparing these plans from MetroPCS and Cricket, I can't help but notice that no matter how cheap these prepaid phones are, the Straight Talk Unlimited plan is superior.