Cricket Wireless today announced significant changes soon to impact its subscription music service.
First, the company announced it will launch the Deezer music app and service on Jan. 31. The Deezer music service offers access to 35 million songs and tens of thousands of radio stations, all of which can be streamed over the network or cached for offline listening. The Deezer app and service will cost $6 per month (including taxes). Existing GSM-based Cricket customers can trial the service for free for 15 days.
At the same time, Cricket plans to sunset its Muve Music service, something it has offered to customers for years. Muve Music will be discontinued entirely on Feb. 7. Muve is currently only available to Cricket’s legacy CDMA customers. Cricket is offering to switch those customers — and their Muve libraries/playlists — to the GSM-based network and Deezer service.
CDMA customers who switch to Cricket’s GSM network will receive an extended trial of the Deezer service before they have to start making monthly payments. Cricket said Deezer won’t be built into its mobile data offering like it did with Muve Music. Instead, it will be a separate, stand-alone service offered to all customers for the same $6 monthly rate.
AT&T purchased Cricket last year and has been transitioning its legacy CDMA customers to its own GSM-based network since May. Cricket said it is pleased with the rate at which it is converting customers from the old network to the new one, though they didn’t specify how many customers are still using CDMA equipment.
