General Questions about Cricket

[Bluestank]

Hey my contract with Sprint ends this september (Thank God) and i'm lookin for a new plan. I've found that Cricket is now in Texas where I live, but the plans that they have seem almost too good to be true. So whats the catch??Can anyone tell me from experience if there is any downside to getting Cricket? My only worry is that it will have horrible coverage and service. Anyone know?

-Much Appreciated

[noahm]

First question, do you travel often outside of the Houston Area? If you do then Cricket may not be the right choice. The catch with Cricket is, the unlimited plans that they are offering are local calling plans. You cant leave the Greater Houston area with your phone and use unlimited minutes. Also with the 30 and 35 dollar plan notice that long distance isnt included either. It is with the 40 and 45 dollar plans but they are still local only.

One option they offer is called TravelTime. It lets you roam anywhere you want in the U.S. (with CDMA coverage). They charge a flat rate of 5$ for 30 minutes that you can use outside of Houston. Here's the link:
https://www.mycricket.com/travel/

So it basically comes down to if you travel a lot. If not cricket would probably be a great option for you, although I cant comment on service or coverage in your area which are big factors also!

[Bluestank]

Well I live in College Station, TX for most of the year, which I believe is covered in the Cricket area. Do you mean that I cannot call TO anywhere outside of MY Cricket area, or that I just cant make calls if I am outside the cricket area.

Thanks!

[noahm]

Sorry looking back I can see I wasn't very clear on that. On any of the four Cricket plans you cannot call from outside of the Cricket calling area (unless using travel time) With the Unlimited Basic and Unlimited Classic plans (30 & 35$) Long Distance is not included and it looks like you'll be charged .08 a minute to call outside of the cricket calling area. On the Unlimited Access and Unlimited Plus plans long distance is included so you should be able to call anywhere in the U.S. with your normal unlimited minutes. But remember, you still cant leave the calling area and use your unlimited minutes. Cricket deals with localizing like that to give you the value of unlimited calling.

If you havent already check out this map:
http://www.mycricket.com/coverage/vi...marketCode=710

It looks like you may lose coverage on highways between college station and houston.

Hope that helps!