Leap Wireless First To Offer Prepaid iPhone

At first you could only get the iPhone through AT&T which had Apples smartphone exclusively. Then, Apple opened it up to other US Carriers like Verizon who have done a good job with and even smaller regional carriers like C Spire which was formerly Cellular South. Today, we have the first US Carrier announcing that they will have the iPhone 4/4S beginning on June 22nd. Leap’s Cricket Service should get a nice shot in the arm with only slow growth here in the US, and be able to offer customers the latest in mobile technology at $55 per month plan. Leap Wireless will sell the 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S for $499.99 and the older 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 for $399.99.

JP Morgan analyst Phillip Cusick thinks that Leap is subsidizing about $100-$125 of each iPhone and does not see much demand for a high  end smartphone in a prepaid market. However, he does think that this will be a pretty good gimmick for Leap to drive customers into their stores and possibly get them into something else a lot more affordable.

For those sort of prices it would be better to buy an older/used phone privately off craigslist. Leaps $55 dollar plan consists of unlimited talk, text, and data but expect the speed to be throttled down after 2.3 GB.

Anyone going to Leap into a prepaid iPhone? LOL

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