No-contract provider Cricket Communications recently began offering over-the-air data backup services from Asurion, the companies said today.

Cricket calls the service My Backup.  Contacts are saved automatically and subscribers can perform manual backups as well as view the backup history reports.  Subscribers also get a Web interface and the ability to import contacts from Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Mail.

My Backup is available in English and Spanish for $2 per month and currently works on 20 phones, officials said.

Backup services from mobile operators are becoming increasingly common.  Consumers already understand the need to back up data on computers and are gradually accepting modern handsets as technology in need of similar care and security.  Some services go beyond just contacts to also back up a phone’s other data such as pictures and third-party software.

Asurion and Cricket were previously partners, as Asurion provided Cricket’s handset insurance plan from Sept. 2004 – Sept. 2007.

Other Asurion customers include Alltel, AT&T, Metro PCS, NTT DoCoMo, Rogers Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless.