Skip to footer

The Apple iPhone goes prepaid, courtesy of Cricket

Cricket Communications will begin offering a prepaid iPhone to US customers. 

|
Reuters
The Apple iPhone 4S.

Cricket Communications, a subsidiary of Leap Wireless, will become the first prepaid carrier in the US to offer the Apple iPhone. 

Here's how it works: Beginning on June 22, you can march into any Cricket store and plop down $500 for a new iPhone 4S or $400 for a new iPhone 4. Cricket voice and data plans, meanwhile, will set you back approximately $55 a month. In exchange, you don't have to worry about the hassle of a contract. 

Other American carriers want about $300 for the 4S (depending on hard drive size) and $99 for the 4. Monthly service plans range from $80 to well more than $100 – plus there's a two-year contract. Buying an iPhone without that contract costs north of $600.

Until recently, of course, consumers had essentially two options when purchasing an iPhone: paying a fortune for an unlocked model, or signing a two-year contract with Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T. "Our customers want the best products available,” Doug Hutcheson, chief executive officer of Leap, said in a statement. "Launching iPhone is a major milestone for us." 

According to Businessweek, Leap paid $900 million for the privilege. 

Not interested in the Cricket deal? Well, as Chris Foresman of Ars Technica writes today, there is another way to get a "prepaid" iPhone. 

"You can buy a prepaid AT&T-compatible microSIM from StraightTalk, an MNVO run by TracFone and Walmart, for just $15," Foresman notes. "StraightTalk offers a $45 monthly plan that also includes unlimited calls, texts, and data. And since StraightTalk runs over AT&T's network, you don't even need an unlocked iPhone – just pop in the SIM, update your APN data settings, and you're good to go."

In related news, according to Jeffries analyst Peter Misek, the iPhone 3GS could soon get a second life in developing countries around the globe. Misek recently told Apple Insider that Apple signed a contract with "a leading distribution and logistics company," which would help Apple sell the iPhone 3GS as a prepaid device. 

For more tech news, follow us on Twitter @venturenaut. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to The Apple iPhone goes prepaid, courtesy of Cricket
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Horizons/2012/0531/The-Apple-iPhone-goes-prepaid-courtesy-of-Cricket
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe