Cricket Wireless starts offering 5G but only for one device – The Verge

AT&T-owned Cricket Wireless is enabling 5G support on some of its plans, the company announced. But oddly, even though the appeal to most customers of prepaid plans like Cricket is a lower price, the company’s only 5G compatible device so far is the $1,199 Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus. And getting access to 5G on Cricket requires subscribing to one of its Unlimited plans, which start at $60 per month.

Cricket will likely use AT&T’s low-band 5G network (the announcement didn’t specify much in the way of technical details), which uses low-band 850MHz spectrum technology that has broader range but slower speeds than its mmWave 5G, which AT&T calls its 5G Plus network. The latter is currently limited to developers and select businesses. T-Mobile also offers its low-band 5G, which it launched in December, to its Metro prepaid customers.

Cricket also announced it’s adding 5G support to its Simply Data plans, which don’t offer phone and text service, which start at 20GB of data for $35 per month. And it’s added a new Simply Data rate plan, with 100GB for $90 per month.