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Company type | Subsidiary |
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Industry | Wireless telecommunications |
Founded | March 17, 1999 in Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Headquarters | , United States |
Number of locations | 5,000 retail stores [1] (2019) |
Area served | United States |
Key people |
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Products | |
Services | Mobile communications |
Number of employees | 221 |
Parent |
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Website | www |
Cricket Wireless LLC is an American prepaid wireless service provider, wholly-owned by AT&T. It provides wireless services to thirteen million subscribers in the United States as of 2022. [3] Cricket Wireless was founded in March 1999 by Leap Wireless International. AT&T acquired Leap Wireless International in March 2014, and later merged Cricket Wireless operations with Aio Wireless. [4] Cricket Wireless competes primarily against T-Mobile's Metro by T-Mobile, EchoStar's Boost Mobile and Verizon's Visible in the prepaid wireless segment.
Cricket Wireless was founded in March 1999 by Leap Wireless International. AT&T acquired Leap Wireless International in March 2014 and merged Cricket Wireless with Aio Wireless. [5] Before AT&T's acquisition, the company had 4.5 million subscribers.
Cricket's first market was Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1999 and through much of its early growth became known as a network focused on small, rural markets. [6] [1]
In September 2007, MetroPCS, Cricket Wireless's competing carrier at the time, announced a $5.3 billion bid to merge with Leap Wireless. [7] Leap informally rejected the bid less than two weeks later. [8] MetroPCS officially withdrew the bid less than two months later. [9] In December 2007, Cricket acquired Hargray Communications Group's wireless telecommunications business. [10]
In September 2008, Cricket and MetroPCS entered into a ten-year roaming agreement covering both companies' existing and future markets. The companies also entered into a spectrum exchange agreement covering licenses in certain markets. [11] In November 2008, they launched "Premium Extended Coverage", a roaming partnership with 14 wireless companies. [12] In August 2010, Cricket and Sprint signed a five-year wholesale agreement (MVNO) which allowed Cricket to utilize Sprint's nationwide 3G EVDO network in the United States.
In late 2010 at CES 2011, Cricket unveiled Muve Music, the carriers own music streaming service alongside the $199 Samsung Suede SCH-r710 which was the first phone to support Muve Music and included a 4GB SD Card to store music on. [13] Muve Music was initially included in its own $55 plan but was later expanded to all plans as a $5 add-on before being included in all plans free-of-charge. [14] The music service was deemed by Cricket as a major success and credited with helping drive up at least 100,000 new subscribers in the course of a few months. [15] Muve Music originally required an SD Card with a capacity of at least 4GBs to download music, the ability to do so without an SD Card was introduced in version 4.0 of Muve Music but required an internal storage capacity of at least 4GBs. Muve Music 4.0 was officially unveiled on the Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy S4 and Samsung Galaxy Discover while the Samsung Galaxy Admire would ship with version 3.5 but was upgradeable to version 4.0. [16] At its peak, the service was the biggest music streaming service in regards to paying customers with a customer base of 2.3 million users and was hinted in making appearances in international markets such as in Brazil. [17] The fate of the service was put in doubt after the acquisition of Crickets parent company, Leap Wireless, by AT&T and was rumored to be merged with AT&Ts own Beats Music service or possibly left as-is. AT&T expressed a lack of interest in maintaining the service and discontinued it in May 2014. AT&T made Muve Music inaccessible to any new phone purchased after the merger but allowed legacy handsets bought before the merger to access the service. [18] The service was acquired by Deezer for $100 million and formally shut down on February 7, 2015. Deezer offered all Cricket customers a discounted $6 plan which was made available on January 31, 2015. [19] Cricket offers a variety of phones including most of the latest iPhone and Android models.
In July 2013, AT&T agreed to buy Cricket Wireless' parent for $1.2 billion. The FCC approved the acquisition between AT&T and Leap Wireless in March 2014. [20] In doing so, AT&T merged its own Aio Wireless prepaid brand into Cricket to form the "New Cricket". [21] Cricket Wireless began a gradual shutdown of its CDMA network in March 2015 before a total shutdown in September 2015 and moved all users over to AT&Ts GSM network. All users were required to buy new devices in order to be able to maintain connectivity to the new Cricket network. [22] Cricket Wireless, alongside AT&T, shut down its 2G networks on December 31, 2016. [23] Customers with legacy handsets were also required to upgrade their devices to use on newer networks.
Cricket Wireless deployed its 5G network nationwide on August 21, 2020. [24] Shortly afterward, Cricket announced the shutdown of its 3G network starting in February 2022. [25]
Prior to its acquisition by AT&T, Cricket's CDMA network used its home network and roaming agreements with Sprint, among other CDMA carriers. However, Cricket's CDMA network was shut down and the spectrum was reframed for use on AT&T's HSPA+ and LTE networks. Following the acquisition by AT&T, Cricket Wireless released devices that use AT&T's 3G, 4G, and 4G LTE networks.
Cricket Wireless noted on its old website that CDMA service would be terminated as early as September 2015. Most devices prior to the merger would not be compatible on the GSM network except the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, and iPhone 5s. Compatible iPhone devices would only require a new SIM card.
In May 2015, Cricket Wireless was sued for selling CDMA phones that would not work after the merger with AT&T. The lawsuit alleged that Cricket knew at the time of the merger with AT&T that any devices sold would soon need to be replaced because AT&T's network did not support CDMA devices and yet continued to do so. The lawsuit further stated that "AT&T and Cricket had decided to discontinue the CDMA network and require Cricket customers to use AT&T's GSM cellular network" yet continued to sell the devices, and due to Cricket's policy of not unlocking cellphones at that time, "the cellphones became useless and worthless." [26] The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff and Cricket was forced to either unlock the locked cell phones, provide 1 month of free service on the 1GB plan for former customers and waive the activation fee, or provide current customers with one extra gigabyte of data for four months. [27]
A similar lawsuit was filed by the Attorney General of Maryland in June 2020 for violating the state's consumer protection act. [28]
In October 2014, Cricket Wireless (and its parent company, AT&T) came under scrutiny for intercepting and modifying its customers' email traffic to downgrade and prevent encryption of the conversation and its metadata. [29] An engineer at a digital security and privacy firm, Golden Frog, first noticed the issue in September 2013 via his Aio Wireless connection (later acquired by Cricket). [30] Upon further investigation by the privacy firm in June 2014, Golden Frog determined that Cricket masked the STARTTLS command in email server responses, thereby "putting its customers at serious risk by inhibiting their ability to protect online communications." [30] In October, a Washington Post investigation revealed that "Cricket did not address repeated questions about the issue and did not alert customers, many of whom rely on Cricket as their sole Internet service, that they would not be able to protect their e-mails from prying eyes. AT&T, which absorbed Cricket when it acquired Leap Wireless that spring, did not respond to a request for comment." [29] The EFF also published a technical analysis condemning ISPs like Cricket for tampering with customer internet traffic. [31]
Bell Mobility Inc. is a Canadian wireless network operator and the division of Bell Canada which offers wireless services across Canada. It operates networks using LTE and HSPA+ on its mainstream networks. Bell Mobility is the third-largest wireless carrier in Canada, with 10.1 million subscribers as of Q3 2020.
Verizon is an American wireless network operator that previously operated as a separate division of Verizon Communications under the name Verizon Wireless. In a 2019 reorganization, Verizon moved the wireless products and services into the divisions Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business, and stopped using the Verizon Wireless name. Verizon has 114.8 million subscribers as of March 31, 2024. It currently has the largest network in the United States with their LTE network covering 70% of the United States.
Virgin Mobile USA was a no-contract Mobile Virtual Network Operator. It used Sprint's network for coverage. It licensed the Virgin Mobile brand from United Kingdom-based Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile USA was headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, and provided service to approximately 6 million customers.
TracFone Wireless, Inc. (TFWI) is an American wireless prepaid service provider. It is a mobile virtual network operator offering prepaid and no-contract services on the Verizon network under multiple brands, including TracFone, Straight Talk Wireless, Total Wireless, Simple Mobile, SafeLink Wireless, Page Plus Cellular, Net10 Wireless, GoSmart Mobile, and Walmart Family Mobile.
Telus Mobility is a Canadian wireless network operator and a division of Telus Communications which sells wireless services in Canada on its network. It operates 5G+, 5G, LTE, HSPA+, and LPWA on its network. Telus Mobility is the second-largest wireless carrier in Canada, with 10.6 million subscribers as of Q3 2020.
Sprint Corporation was an American telecommunications company. Before being acquired by T-Mobile US on April 1, 2020, it was the fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United States, serving 54.3 million customers as of June 30, 2019. The company also offered wireless voice, messaging, and broadband services through its various subsidiaries under the Boost Mobile and Open Mobile brands and wholesale access to its wireless networks to mobile virtual network operators.
Metro by T-Mobile, formerly known as MetroPCS, and simply known as Metro, is an American prepaid wireless service provider and brand owned by T-Mobile US. It previously operated the fifth largest mobile telecommunications network in the United States using code-division multiple access (CDMA). In 2013, the carrier engaged in a reverse merger with T-Mobile US; post-merger, its services were merged under T-Mobile's UMTS and LTE network. Metro by T-Mobile competes primarily against AT&T's Cricket Wireless, EchoStar's Boost Mobile and Verizon's Visible as part of the wireless service provider brands. Metro by T-Mobile has twenty million subscribers as of 2021.
The Claro Company, or simply Claro, is a Latin American telecommunications company, part of América Móvil, a Mexican telecom group. Claro serves customers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico and Uruguay. Its Mexican operations are branded as Claro Mexico. The company's name means "bright," "clear," and also "of course," in both Portuguese and Spanish.
Leap Wireless International, Inc. was a telecommunications operator that provided wireless services to approximately 4.6 million subscribers, the 5th largest, through its subsidiary, Cricket Communications, Inc.. It was headquartered in San Diego, California. Leap Wireless and Cricket Wireless are now subsidiaries of AT&T.
PowerSource, or "hybrid" phones, are specialized cellular devices used by customers of the American telecommunications company Sprint-Nextel. They are distinct from other mobile phones in that they make use of two cellular networks instead of a single one.
Pocket Communications was a PCS CDMA 1xRTT provider of unlimited cellular phone service based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. It offered service plans similar to those of Cricket Communications and MetroPCS with unlimited local phone and messaging service on a month to month basis with no contract. Its founder Paul Posner started as a local paging operator in San Antonio before becoming a dealer for Southwestern Bell Mobile Systems, Houston Cellular, and BellSouth Mobility in 7 markets in Texas and the Southeast under the name Discount Cellular & Paging. After selling these operations in 1997, Posner spent 7 years trying to acquire FCC licenses required to build a cellular network and was ultimately successful in FCC Auction 58 in 2004. Pocket launched service in 2006 in San Antonio and competed directly with Cricket Communications in the only US market where two flat-rate providers competed head to head. Pocket's unique marketing strategy included operating hundreds of small retail locations with just one employee, oversaturation of billboard advertising, and the use of chimpanzees in its advertising. In its first year of operations, Pocket became the fastest growth company in the history of the US wireless communications, achieving positive cash flow in just 6 months. Subsequent expansion from San Antonio to Laredo, the Rio Grande Valley, and Corpus Christi markets and a customer base of over 400,000 subscribers ultimately led to a merger offer from Cricket Communications in late 2010. Cricket was subsequently sold to ATT in 2015. ATT continues to operate Cricket as a stand-alone business and a "flanker brand.
T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. Its largest shareholder is Deutsche Telekom, a company that operates telecommunications networks in several other countries. T-Mobile is the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, with 125.9 million subscribers as of June 31, 2024.
Public Mobile Inc. is a Canadian self-serve mobile brand which is owned by Telus. Launched on March 18, 2010, Public Mobile was one of several new Canadian cellphone providers that started in 2009–10 after a federal government initiative to encourage competition in the wireless sector.
The LG Optimus One is an entry-level series of touch-screen smartphones manufactured by LG Electronics, Inc. It was released running the Android 2.2 Froyo, and later LG released software to upgrade it to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Although the basic physical form factor of each variant is the same, the variants have differences in hard button shape and layout, the form of the metal side bezel and the user interfaces added by LG or various carriers. Versions of the Optimus One exist that operate on various frequency bands and either GSM or CDMA-based network protocols. They may also feature one or more variations in hardware, such as a faster processor, the addition of a physical keyboard, a modem with higher theoretical speeds, or a better digital camera.
Voice over Long-Term Evolution is an LTE high-speed wireless communication standard for voice calls and SMS using mobile phones and data terminals. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than older 3G UMTS and up to six times more than 2G GSM. It uses less bandwidth because VoLTE's packet headers are smaller than those of unoptimized VoIP/LTE. VoLTE calls are usually charged at the same rate as other calls.
Aio Wireless was a prepaid wireless service provider in the United States, wholly owned by AT&T Inc., launched in May 2013.
Ting Mobile is an American mobile virtual network operator owned by Boost Mobile. Originally established in February 2012 by Tucows, Ting provides cellular service in the United States using the T-Mobile and Verizon networks. The service is sold off-contract with billing that adjusts the cost of service based on actual customer usage.
DISH Wireless L.L.C., doing business as Boost Mobile, is an American telecommunications company and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. Boost Mobile is the fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States. Together with its sister brands Gen Mobile and Ting Mobile, it serves 7.3 million subscribers as of June 30, 2024.