AT&T relaunches Cricket prepaid, kills off Aio brand

The Cricket Wireless brand got a new lease on life thanks to AT&T, which re-introduced the prepaid wireless service on Sunday with a new set of competitive offers.

AT&T inherited the Cricket brand through its $1.2 billion acquisition of Cricket-parent Leap Wireless, which closed in March. As a result of its decision to fully back Cricket, the Dallas telecommunications provider scrapped its own prepaid Aio brand, which launched just one year ago.

"As you think about the new Cricket, think about it as keeping the Cricket name, but totally changing the game for customers," said Jennifer Van Buskirk, president of AT&T's Cricket unit.

By strengthening its prepaid offering and consolidating its resources behind the more widely known Cricket name, AT&T is hoping to tap into one of the fastest growing parts of the market. With the number of contract customers -- which are seen as the most lucrative in the industry -- shrinking, the prepaid is seen as a more critical market for the carriers.

Customers who come into the store today get a phone that's compatible with the AT&T network, kicking off the transition from Cricket's older CDMA network to AT&T's use of HPSA+ and LTE.