They just opened a new Cricket Wireless storefront on Milwaukee Ave near California, in my ‘hood. I’ve noticed these things popping up like mad, and their billboards are EVERYWHERE. I found this one on the way to work this morning:

Now, in the cellphone provider world, there’s the “big 3:” AT&T (which me and Katz have), Verizon, and T-Mobs. Then there’s Sprint, who is basically just falling off the face of the earth.

Then there’s “the other guys.” US Cellular (uses Verizon’s network, I believe), AllTel, Boost Mobile, Metro PCS (WORST commercials ever…), etc. These other providers, including Cricket, mostly base their pricing around the prepaid model. Prepaid wireless used to be the ghetto shit that no one admitted having - for example way back in 2001 when i was trying to cop that nokia, I was a poor student with no credit. They wanted a $10,000 (no joke) deposit before they’d give me a phone at AT&T. So I had to trudge my dejected self down newbury st. in boston in search for a sketchy wireless phone vendor in a basement somewhere. I found one and ended up with VoiceStream. you know, the one that had Jamie Lee Curtis for a spokes…person.

Anyway, now these prepaid services are blowing up, Cricket especially, because they’re undercutting all the big guys’ plans. $40 a month will get you unlimited everything with Cricket. I pay $100 a month and only get unlimited texts and data. I hardly use my voice minutes, but I’m paying a ridiculous amount for the rest of it.

Cricket’s target market is probably students and lower income people who don’t want or need a smartphone (cricket and most other prepaid services don’t offer smartphone handsets). My guess is that people will be rethinking their expenses and if they can save some dough by switching to one of these smaller guys, they probably will. AT&T and Verizon are lumbering giants who still hold the lion’s share of the cell phone subscribers out there, but if the other guys take even 5% of that market share away, that’s still a lot of money. Who said the recession was bad for everyone?

Tags: cricket, prepaid, wireless plans

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 at 9:53 am and is filed under Superior Judgment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.