I have heard that Cricket is basically ATTs network and coverage, and it is a whole heck of a lot cheaper, with more data/unlimited options.

My 2-yr contract is up and am looking for a smaller bill. Any reason I should avoid Cricket?

TIA

I had unlimited at ATT for about 100 a month and they kept throttling me after like 2-3 gigs. I switched to cricket and while the data network is slower it still does the same things i need it for and saves me 50 a month.

The thing about MVNO's is that while they get to use the carrier's bands they are often severely throttled. You might get 6 Mbps with AT&T but only 250 kbps on Cricket. Sometimes they give you 1 GB of full speed or so before throttling you. So Caveat Emptor.

Watching this thread. Still on unlimited plan and off contract and would love to switch from AT&T to something cheaper and upgrade the old S4.

If you are a business owner, you can get an AT&T business line through Bluegreen Mobile. I've been using them since may and no issues so far AND data is uncapped.

If you don't own a business, check out Howard Forums. Lots of information regarding MVNOs.

I switched from Sprint to Cricketand it's been great, better call coverage and just as good on data. Obviously ATT is superior to Sprint so it may be a tougher adjustment.

so sounds like the max speed I am getting would be 8mbps, but does anyone know what ATT is giving me? I did a speed test over LTE just now and got like 30down, 20 up which is nice.

I am on wifi probably 20 hours out of the 24 hours in a day, so I dont do much data. Just wondering how noticeable 8mbps would be when all I do is check email, google maps, etc.

I also read where a Cricket call will get dropped in place of a higher priority ATT call, which makes sense but how often does this happen - would I ever encounter this? Hard to tell IMHO

What I was trying to say was AT&T user on AT&T network gets 8 Mbps or 30 or whatever, Cricket user on AT&T network is at 128 kbps. You get 1 or 2 or more GB non severely throttled depending on your plan. They aren't going to give you the same speeds for half price. If you choose their unlimited plan you are paying more than you would for full speeds from TMo or Sprint.

Why not just switch to a go phone plan if you are on wifi for the majority of the day? Should be a lot cheaper and you are still on att.

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/1796938821

I'd suggest looking at Straight Talk. I'm on their 5gb per month $45 plan and get roughly 25 down and 6 up unless I exceed 5 gb. Very similar to Cricket except Cricket is capped at 8gb down until you exceed your limit.

We switched from ATT to Cricket 2 years ago and haven't looked back. No issues whatsoever.

Haven't had any noticeable issues like this at all - I regularly stream Netflix from my phone while running at the gym without issues.

Switched from Verizon to Cricket last year, and am very happy with it. I 8gb down is plenty to stream video to your phone, I use Netflix and watchESPN regularly without problems.

PooDoo - is that test using Cricket?

I've been thinking about it.

Curious what do y'all do with your iPad's with AT&T Cellular?

A couple of notes: The speed isn't an issue as others have said, however I have noticed issues with things like using google maps and the phone at the same time. Not as smooth as AT&T.

Buying a new phone: I want to buy an iPhone 7+ outright and I'm having issues making that happen not on a major carrier.

I consider both of these minor things, but items I've noticed being on Cricket for about 6 months.

I just bought an iPhone 7 outright today and I'm on cricket. Just order online and choose T-Mobile as a carrier. It will come with a T-Mobile sim card, but just pop it out and put in your cricket card and activate like normal. It still works perfectly since they both run on GSM. All the phones that Apple sells online are technically unlocked.

If you choose AT&T when buying they make you verify that your phone number is on their carrier. However, T-Mobile does not.

but I guess my whole point of moving from ATT to Cricket was for the ATT Coverage, which I dont really have an issue with. I do have two iphone 6s (two sixes, not two 6s) but will likely go to iphone 7 at some point...are you saying that is not possible if on ATT, meaning I have to go to T-Mobile to go to iphone7?

quote:

---

I just bought an iPhone 7 outright today and I'm on cricket. Just order online and choose T-Mobile as a carrier. It will come with a T-Mobile sim card, but just pop it out and put in your cricket card and activate like normal. It still works perfectly since they both run on GSM. All the phones that Apple sells online are technically unlocked.

If you choose AT&T when buying they make you verify that your phone number is on their carrier. However, T-Mobile does not.

---

Excellent, thanks for the tip. They wouldn't confirm that for me at the store.

quote:

---

but I guess my whole point of moving from ATT to Cricket was for the ATT Coverage, which I dont really have an issue with. I do have two iphone 6s (two sixes, not two 6s) but will likely go to iphone 7 at some point...are you saying that is not possible if on ATT, meaning I have to go to T-Mobile to go to iphone7?

---

No, he is just saying that is how he ordered his online via Apple. If you go to the site to buy one it will make sense.

Like Pro Ag said, that is just how I ordered it online.

You don't have to actually switch to T-Mobile. Cricket runs on the AT&T network (which is a GSM network, not like Sprint or Verizon which are CDMA). When you order the phone online one of the steps is to choose your carrier. In the past you could also pick the "carrier free" option, but for some reason they removed that option. The only carrier choices that they offer to choose from are AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Since T-Mobile and AT&T (and cricket) all run on the GSM network, any phone that works on one will work on the other. However, if you pick AT&T as your carrier option they make you verify your phone number to ensure that you actually have AT&T service. If you pick T-Mobile, there is no number confirmation.

So you can keep your service with cricket, order a "T-Mobile" iPhone from the apple website, and pop in your cricket sim card when you get it.

Works like a charm.

Ran out of data a couple of days early this month... in case anyone was curious what the Cricket throttled data looks like.

CapCity12thMan said:

---

but I guess my whole point of moving from ATT to Cricket was for the ATT Coverage, which I dont really have an issue with. I do have two iphone 6s (two sixes, not two 6s) but will likely go to iphone 7 at some point...are you saying that is not possible if on ATT, meaning I have to go to T-Mobile to go to iphone7?

---

No.

It's because when you buy through any other carrier, Apple tries to go verify your plan via that carrier. They don't do that with T-Mobile, so if you buy it for T-Mobile, you are just buying the phone outright. Swap your SIM and it will all work fine. In fact, when I bought the iPhone 6 a few years back, it was T-Mobile/Unlocked or something like that when they listed it.

We had ATT for years, but about 2 years ago switched to Cricket and it has been great. Tried Google-Fi for about a month, but switched back to Cricket cause the coverage is much better for me.

PooDoo said:

---

Ran out of data a couple of days early this month... in case anyone was curious what the Cricket throttled data looks like.

---

Yes, when you run out, it is brutally slow - as in, too slow for me to even re-add data without being on WIFI slow.

No, I'm not poor.

I used your referral code after switching about a month ago. Even after signing up without one, I was able to go back and use it. Should see the credit in a couple months. Here's mine if someone else needs a referral credit... https://refer.cricketwireless.com/8s8bvOO

No problems so far. I'm on WiFi for 90% of my phone's data useage but haven't had a problem yet. The only difference I've noticed is the cricket logo on my phone and a bill that's half the size of my old AT&T bill.