Android Gamer: Cricket Wireless relaunched as AT&T’s new prepaid brand

A little over two months after formally completing its acquisition of Cricket Wireless, AT&T today announced the launch of “the new Cricket Wireless.”

The new Cricket is a combination of the old Cricket brand and AT&T’s Aio Wireless prepaid subsidiary. Launching with a fresh Cricket logo and an Aio-like website, the new Cricket Wireless offers 4G LTE connectivity that covers 280 million people as well as a handful of no-contract plans and phones. This launch of the new Cricket also includes 3,000 rebranded Cricket stores across the country, with more on the way.

Looking at its rate plans, Cricket offers a $25 per month Talk & Text plan that offers unlimited talk and text, but no data. This plan is for basic phones only.

Cricket’s smartphone plans start at $40 per month and includes unlimited talk, text — including domestic and international messaging on the two high-end plans — and bottomless data, though a customer’s speeds will be slowed after using up his or her high-speed data allotment. The $40 Basic plan offers 500MB of high-speed data, the $50 Smart plan comes with 2.5GB of high-speed data and the $60 Pro plan includes 5GB of high-speed data. Subscribers can save $5 per month if they enroll in Auto Pay.

Additionally, Cricket offers the same Group Save discount that Aio launched last month. With this deal, customers will receive a monthly discount for putting additional lines on their account. For example, a second line will receive a $10 per month discount, while a fourth line will save $30 each month.

The new Cricket offers a special loyalty credit to users on either a Smart or Pro plan. After 12 months of on-time payments, those customers will receive a $50 credit every year to be put toward the purchase of a new phone.

Speaking of phones, Cricket offers several different types of handsets. Those include the $49.99 ZTE Prelude, $149.99 Moto G and $479.99 Galaxy S 4, all of which are running Android. If Google’s green robot isn’t your thing, Cricket also sells the Windows Phone-powered Lumia 520 for $149.99 and several different iPhone models, including the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s.

Overall the new Cricket looks like a nice combination of the old Cricket and Aio. While Aio seems to be the bigger part of the two, as its phone and plan selections seem mostly intact, AT&T has wisely decided to keep the more widely-known Cricket brand around.

The full announcement of the new Cricket branding can be found at the link below.