It’s not well advertised that AT&T bought a company
called Cricket back in 2013. Cricket is
pre-pay service that uses the same radio towers as AT&T. Because they use the same towers you get the
same coverage at much cheaper rates. They
have an easy to follow web site where you can order their SIM for $10 which
includes 2 day shipping and port your number for free. The Cricket stores can charge activation and
porting fees which are waived online.
When you go online the Cricket web site will ask for your
IMEI number to confirm that your phone is compatible. You need a GSM phone for Cricket. In my case I used a Nexus 6P from Google. If you
have a compatible phone there are a series of questions to help you migrate
your account over before your SIM arrives.
You need two pieces of information that you may not know, your account
number from your current provider (it’s not your phone number) and your PIN
code. This data is entered in advance to help verify if porting is
possible. Keep in mind if you are still
under contract you will have to pay some ETF (early termination fees) from your
current provider.
When your Cricket SIM arrives there are some simple instructions
to switch services. Since you entered
everything in advance it goes very quickly.
Within 15 minutes of me porting my number I was receiving calls and text
messages were fully working after about 30 minutes. Outgoing calls/text work instantly.
Cricket also offers a visual voice mail app for Android
users. I had a slight problem getting my
PIN code setup with the Android app, I had to dial the voice mail number and
setup my PIN code through the voice mail system, the Android app refused to
store it correctly.
The savings are worth the effort of switching. I was paying AT&T $50.51 with taxes for
an unlimited voice/text and 200meg of data.
Cricket has a basic plan which is unlimited voice/text and 2.5gigabytes
of data for $35 including taxes. To get
the $35 deal you must sign up for autopay, otherwise it’s $5 more each
month. Other plans are available if you
need more data. In my case I saved over $15
each month to have the same coverage and increase my data by over 2gigabytes.
