Cricket PAYGo Service Launched in the US

Leap Wireless, owner of Cricket, one of North America's most known regional mobile carriers, announced today the introduction of Cricket PAYGo presented as a non-stop and unlimited prepaid wireless service.

With this daily pay-as-you-go offering, Cricket's users can enjoy the benefits of traditional pre-paid services at a convenient price. For the moment, there are only three mobile phones that can be bought together with Cricket PAYGo: the Cricket EZ candybar, Samsung MyShot and UTStarcom CDM7126 (the last two being clamshells). None of the three phones are high-end, but Cricket was never the carrier to offer these kinds of devices.

Cricket PAYGo comes with the choice of three rate plans: $1 per day, $2 per day or $3 per day. The cheapest rate plan includes unlimited local calling plus “voicemail, caller ID and three-way calling”, while the expensive one (if we can call $3 expensive) adds unlimited text / picture messaging as well as unlimited US long distance calls, international text to more than 100 countries, and mobile Web and directory assistance. Consumers will be charged only for the days they make use of the service, of course.

Talking about Cricket's new offering, Al Moschner, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Leap wireless, declared, "Cricket PAYGo is an innovative product for the pre-paid market that further extends and diversifies the Cricket brand. We've created another way for Cricket to appeal to new customers and, we believe, capture new opportunities to create value for our business. We expect those customers who prefer the control that prepaid service provides will find Cricket PAYGo to be a compelling offer that delivers on Cricket's core value proposition of unlimited voice and data products at market-leading prices".

Cricket PAYGo phones can be found in about 1,600 locations from across the US. By the end of this week, the handsets should also be sold via Cricket stores and dealers from Cincinnati/Dayton, Houston and Savannah/Hilton Head.