Kevin Bostic
Prepaid wireless carrier Cricket announced on Monday that it will begin carrying both Apple's iPhone 5c and the iPhone 5s on Oct. 25.
The carrier's pre-register page still lists the two devices as "coming soon," but a press release on Monday confirmed Oct. 25 as the date for their arrival on Cricket. Cricket has not yet revealed pricing for the 5s and 5c, but potential customers may be able to get an idea from prices for the current iPhone models. The carrier sells a 16-gigabyte iPhone 5 for $600, a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S for $500, and an 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 for $400.
Cricket also makes those costs payable in installments. The iPhone 5, for example, is available with a $25 down payment, with the rest of the cost covered in 23 payments of $25. The iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 are available for $21 and $17 down, respectively, with 23 payments remaining until they are paid off.
Cricket is a prepaid subsidiary of Leap Wireless, and it has some 6.2 million customers across the United States. Leap's network features 4G LTE connectivity, but only in select metropolitan areas .
Cricket was the first prepaid carrier in the U.S. to land the iPhone, securing the iPhone 4S and 4 in June of 2012. With this new generation of iPhones, Virgin Mobile beat Cricket to the punch, launching the iPhone 5s and 5c at the beginning of October.
AppleInsider Staff
Malcolm Owen
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
11 Comments
It would be an interesting article on how the pre-paid plans compare with each other.
Walmart, Cricket, Virgin, etc.
As I understand it, prepaid is the fastest growing segment of wireless but the least profitable for the telco's.
Sounds like progress, to me.
And when both iPhones (phones, not models) are sold out all people can hear is crickets ¡
"8-gigabyte iPhone 4 for $400" yikes! that's a pretty embarrassing price for 8GB of 3 year old tech.
I've got mixed emotions about Cricket. While the monthly plan is very affordable ($35 for unlimited voice/text) I often get dropped texts and lousy reception. With the iPhone I'd have to wait and see how reliable they are on data coverage. I'm too concerned about phone calls since I rarely make them. Texts are far more important. It could just be my super outdated phone, the Samsung Messager Touch. You get what you pay for, I guess. I did try to get the Cricket iPhone earlier this year, but was told it was only available in Texas. I'm hoping the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will be available in Maryland. If not I may have to switch to Virgin for prepaid.
AT&T just bought Leap Wireless a few weeks ago. Leap is the parent company of Cricket. They said at the time they would basically leave Cricket alone to run as an independent but allow them to share AT&T spectrum.