AT&T to give Cricket Wireless customers 18 months to get ready for the new Cricket

As part of a deal made with regulators to hasten the approval of its purchase of Leap Wireless, AT&T will be giving members of Leap's Cricket Wireless service 18 months to make the move to a new carrier. Once the clock starts, AT&T will be sending out texts to Cricket customers, telling them to start visiting AT&T locations to pick out a new phone. You see, AT&T plans on shuttering Cricket's network at the end of the 18 month countdown, even if the Cricket name lives on.

AT&T will give Cricket subscribers the opportunity to buy a new handset for little or no cost. Cricket's 4.5 million subscribers will be merged with AT&T's Aio customers to form the "new" Cricket Wireless, which will launch in the second quarter of this year. Last July, AT&T announced that it was purchasing Cricket's parent Leap Wireless for $1.2 billion in cash and the assumption of $2.8 billion in debt. The deal recently received the green light from regulators and AT&T just closed on it last week.

Jennifer Van Buskirk, president of the new Cricket, says that customers can look forward to lower and more aggressive pricing when the pre-paid carrier re-opens for business. "We're going to get aggressive in this space with pricing," Van Buskirk said. "There's lots more to come as we get closer to launch."


source: DenverPost via SlashGear