Cricket Wireless Is Planning To Optimize Unlimited Video And Throttle Heavy Data Users

This recent piece of news may not be a welcome one for customers of Cricket Wireless who are availing of unlimited data -- apparently, the prepaid arm of major US wireless carrier AT&T has plans to implement a new network management policy that will affect customers under the Cricket Unlimited plan, especially those who consume over 22 gigabytes of data each month. Starting on April 2nd, it is quite possible that these customers will be experiencing throttled data speeds particularly in times of network congestion.

Cricket Wireless’ parent company AT&T actually also adopts a similar network management policy, and other wireless carriers out there also have this practice of temporarily de-prioritizing their heaviest data users whenever the network traffic is high. As a matter of fact, other mobile operators such as Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint also throttle the top two or three percent of their respective data users. 

As a result of this kind of policy, connection speeds are slowed down during congested times, and in Cricket Wireless’ case, those who go beyond 22 gigabytes of data each month will be affected. Also, the prepaid carrier is planning to let its unlimited users know when they have reached 75 percent of their 22 gigabyte allowances by way of text message (that is equal to 16.5 gigabytes of data each month, by the way).

Apart from soon introducing a new network management policy, Cricket Wireless is also looking to debut a new streaming video feature called Stream More. This new feature will be made available on Cricket plans from $30 and above. Basically, this feature limits the streaming speeds for video on the user’s handset to 480p (also known as standard definition).

Remember the Stream Saver feature introduced by AT&T back in November of last year? Well, Cricket Wireless’ Stream More is similar to that, except for the fact that when Stream More is activated, users will no longer be able to watch video content in HD quality when streaming in the United States, Canada, or Mexico.

Still, it bears noting that the Stream More feature is not mandatory -- according to Cricket Wireless, users are free to activate or deactivate the feature any time they want. However, customers need to know that once the feature goes live, it will be enabled automatically on the user’s Cricket plan, and the user will have to go the MyCricket mobile app or MyAccount page in order to revert back to 1,080p streaming.

For other deals, you can compare plans and phones from Cricket Wireless at WIrefly now.