Cricket has gone nationwide covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico. More of interest however to BlackBerry and Android fans is that you will able to get the new Android Zio M600 and BlackBerry Curve 8530 with prepaid plans. You will still have to pay for the smartphone upfront. It has been suggested the the Android Kyocera Zio would cost between $169 and $219. These smartphones will allow cost-conscious buyers to buy into the smarpthone market at a cheaper price.
Zio (pronounced Z? -O) uses
CDMA2000 1xEV-DO rev. A and Wi-Fi network technologies and features a
high-resolution 3.5-inch WVGA motion-enhanced, touchscreen, trackball,
3.2 MP camera with
30fps video record/playback, media player, full HTML web browser, Google
Maps and countless widgets and applications. We saw the smartphone at CTIA and it should be good deal for all the features.
Cricket customers can now take advantage of unlimited
calling in
the top 125 cities in the U.S.
Cricket's new national service plans
start at $30 and
all plans offer unlimited nationwide talk. Other service plans at $40,
$50 and $60 offer additional features including unlimited text, picture
and video messaging; mobile Web, navigation, mobile video entertainment
and 411 capabilities.
For customers choosing service plans of $40 or more, Cricket now offers unlimited international long distance calling to
landlines in select cities and towns in more than 100 countries
(including unlimited calls to landlines in Mexico) and unlimited text
messages to Mexico for an additional $15 a month. No matter which plan
customers choose, they have the flexibility to change service plans
without paying a migration fee. In addition Cricket has standardized
pricing on most bolt-on feature offerings at $5 including ring back
tones, handset protection, and navigation.
All new rate plans include nationwide talk coverage.
Changes to previous rate plans are noted below:
| Previously Included |
Now Also Includes |
|
| $30 Basic Plan | Unlimited Local Talk |
Unlimited Long Distance |
| $40 More Plan |
Unlimited Local Talk |
Unlimited Video Messaging |
| $50 All Plan |
Above Features + |
Unlimited Video Messaging |
| $60 Premium Plan |
Above Features + |
Unlimited Video Messaging |
"Our national coverage expansion is the
first
announcement in what we expect to be an exciting year for our customers
in 2010," continued Moschner. "To augment our new service plans we will
continue to offer a wide choice of feature-rich phones, many of them
including QWERTY keyboard functionality. In addition, the company
expects to also introduce integrated smartphones."