Cricket Wireless...any Thoughts? 🤔

Anyone out there using Cricket wireless? I realize there are past posts about cell phones and wireless companies, but their info and reliability changes faster than a truckers changes his underwear! They are offering unlimited calling, texting, and data (with no throttling back) for $70.00/mo or $65.00/mo if you set up direct billing from your account. If you have experience with them, let me know what you think of their coverage, reliability, etc. Thanks! Merry Christmas and God Speed!!

Cricket uses AT&T. I drive rural all day long and never have an issue. I had Boost and had major issues with service. I have the $35 dollar plan with 2GB of data. I may try the unlimited and start streaming all day.

I can use my phone as a hot spot for nothing extra. It just uses my data. When I had Boost they charged $10/mo for hot spot. I don't know all the plans Boost has now.

I'm on AT&T and can turn on a secured wifi network hotspot via my phone. Tried it to see if it worked and yep, it even claimed it was checking my plan and then it just... worked. Verified it by connecting to it briefly from a tablet.

This was on a rooted android, though. A 2013 Moto X to be specific. Dunno if that makes a difference or if I'd be able to enable it even on a phone I bought directly from them and never rooted. (Perish the thought! I don't know if I could stand to use an un-rooted phone for anything besides spare parts...)

I'm an employee of AT&T. I worked for DIRECTV in the advanced tech support department before AT&T bought us in July 2015. I still work in the same department but for AT&T now. I follow this website because I've been researching many companies to find the one I want to train me. After reading Rainy's and many others who have posted, I start training with Prime on 01/09/2017. I can give you the scoop on Cricket since they were acquired by AT&T and now use the same network. Personally, I would choose Cricket's unlimited everything plan over anything else from any other carrier. You get unlimited talk, text and unlimited un-throttled data on AT&Ts vast network. I've been using AT&T since they acquired DIRECTV because of the 50% discount I get as an employee. I couldn't be happier. I live in Oklahoma and have traveled in many rural areas of the state while listening to Pandora without a song pausing even once. Prior to AT&T, my wife & I used Boost for over 10 years. We only paid $40/month per phone but only got 2GB of data on each but the phones were 3G only. Boost uses the same network as Sprint and Sprint's coverage is inferior to both AT&T's and Verizon's. AT&T's unlimited everything plan has 2 caveats, 1) You have to subscribe to DIRECTV to get the unlimited data plan and 2) After 22GBs of data each month they "can" throttle your speed. I've spoken with many customers who have told me they use over 100GBs of data/month without being throttled. I assume it depends on the congestion in the area you're in. My service hasn't been throttled either but I only went over 22GBs once.

AT&T, Cricket and every other carrier (as far as I know) will deactivate your mobile device's ability to act as a wifi hotspot when you have unlimited data. I have found a workaround that works at least for AT&T/Cricket. If you download the app FoxFi with pdanet+, you can use your mobile device with unlimited data to "tether" to other devices such as laptops, tablets & desktops (although I don't think many truckers use desktops in their rigs). It's not a hotspot per se but you can either tether to any device using a USB cable (fastest internet speed) or through Bluetooth. Connecting my desktop at home to my tethered Samsung Galaxy S7 phone via USB I get about 10 mbps (megabits per second) download speed and around 5 mbps upload. Using Bluetooth, I get around 2 mbps download and 1 mbps upload.

I've also read a lot of reviews and this YouTube video gives great info on this 4G signal booster that you use inside your truck and has both an exterior and interior antenna. You can check out the YouTube video here. I hope this doesn't break any website rules that I'm unaware of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XBMNCC9fc

Anyway, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents since I know a little more than most about AT&T and Cricket cellular. Stay safe out there drivers and thank you TT for being far superior to that other trucker forum.