Cricket Customers Won't Benefit from AT&T's LTE Advancements for Now
Jan 4, 2017, 8:10 PM by Eric M. Zeman
Cricket Wireless customers shouldn't expect to see an improvement in data speeds any time soon, despite the incredible gains in LTE performance made by Cricket parent AT&T. Cricket caps all customers' data speeds at 8 Mbps, even though its phones and the network support speeds up to 10 times faster. AT&T is already deploying 3-channel carrier aggregation and plans to upgrade to 4-channel carrier aggregation soon, delivering LTE Advanced speeds as quick as 1 Gbps. Those speeds will be reserved for AT&T's own customers. Cricket CEO John Dwyer told Phonescoop that its customers are more interested in value than performance, and most are satisfied with the experience delivered by 8 Mbps. For example, AT&T's new DirecTV Now application requires much less than 8 Mbps, despite its video-heavy nature, and can easily run across Cricket's network. In a related note, Dwyer said that the company may eventually offer a zero-rated data program, but hasn't made any firm commitments. For example, AT&T customers can stream DirecTV Now over LTE without impacting monthly data buckets. Cricket customers cannot, and will chew through data when using DirecTV Now over the cellular network. Cricket has made good progress in expanding its point-of-sale footprint. The company now claims to have more than 14,000 retail locations, of which 4,300 are branded Cricket Stores. Last, Cricket plans to make use of social media to spread its branding message.
source: Cricket Wireless
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Comments
Value vs Performance
If this is the case, then why not increase the speeds and give a better "value" and zero rate some of that DirecTV Now data as well. Value isn't just about low performance, low price, just need something to get by - rather the most capable and possible for a low price that's competitive over other carriers. For $70 on Cricket you can get unlimited 8mbps speed LTE, or for $60 on Metro you can get unlimited non-speed throttled LTE. The value is better on one, being price and speed offered total, over the other being a larger company as a whole.
Speaking of increased spee...
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