Cricket Wireless Adds 5G Home Internet Service

With 5G cellular speeds now fast enough to rival broadband, many mobile providers are asking: Why should you have separate services for your phone and home? Cricket Wireless is the latest company to answer with a new home internet service that rides the same 5G network you’d get while out with your mobile phone.

Cricket 5G Home Internet service by itself delivers unlimited data on AT&T’s 5G network for $60 a month (with Auto Pay enabled). It also requires purchasing a $50 Cricket Gateway modem.

Bundling a wireless line with home internet service costs $75 for new customers. However, the price drops to $45 per month if you’re an existing Cricket Wireless customer and add the home internet option.

The wireless Cricket Gateway creates a Wi-Fi network to serve your at-home devices and delivers download speeds up to 300 Mbps and upload speeds up to 30 Mbps. That can be throttled in rare cases, “if your usage is contributing to congestion on the network” for 30 minutes, according to Cricket. Speeds and availability depend on how good AT&T’s coverage is in your area.

Being a prepaid service, there’s no ongoing contract. And since the gateway is purchased, not rented or leased, stopping service means you’d have an extra box of technology lying around instead of dealing with the hassle of returning it.

It’s also nice to see Cricket include taxes in the prices, something many carriers now make additional fees.

Cricket’s 5G home internet service is available now.

Senior Writer

Jeff Carlson writes about mobile technology at CNET, from cellular phone plans to devices and emerging technology. See full bio