consumer celluar vs cricket
 

Comparing the 2,what is your preference for cell service

We have been very pleased with Consumer Cellular for several years here in TV. We connect to AT&T towers.

Never used Cricket. Probably never will.

Cricket = ATT. If Consumer Cellular also = ATT as well (as many other MVNO's do also) just choose the one that has a plan that meets your needs. Assuming they are both AT&T you will get the same coverage from both. Looking at the list of MVNO's Consumer Cellular offers BOTH T-Mobile and AT&T as their host systems. Not sure if you can choose.

I had Cricket for about a year - it was fine. However, I wound up switching to Mint Mobile for half the cost - $15/month for unlimited talk and text, and 3 GBytes of data.

With Consumer Cellular you CAN CHOOSE to use either the AT&T or the T-Mobile system. CC provides the appropriate SIM card to do that.

What towers does Mint use?

Mint operates on T-Mobile's GSM network

Before you switch to anybody, check with folks in your neighborhood to see what they use. We moved into the Village of Dunedin and had Cricket (AT&T towers) and got basically zero bars of service in our house and barely one outside. We ended up going with Verizon, which wasn't perfect but did give us better reception at home. In your neighborhood, the opposite could easily be true. It really would be helpful to have more cell towers scattered throughout The Villages, but nobody likes them in their back yard.

Love my Cricket - especially the customer assistance from the staff in Spanish Springs area store! They bent over backwards to get me my first smart phone [an end of life I-phone] and then take more than an hour to unregister my old T-mobile subscription and register the new Cricket subscription AND teach me the basics of using a smart phone! With that kind of customer service it is well worth the monthly fee! And have had no problems with the auto-pay monthly billing feature!

They use T-Mobile.

If you enable Wi-FI calling then there won't be an issue inside your home.

We've been using Consumer Cellular for roughly 5 years now. When we switched from AT&T to Consumer Cellular, we saved over $45 a month and we got much more.

:1rotfl: Wish I had said that! :)

There would be an issue inside your home if you don't have WIFI in your home...

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Obviously but you don't really know whether he has Wi-Fi or not.

Obviously. Which is why you don't know if he will have difficulty connecting inside his home. That was my point...

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Virtually everyone with broadband has a Wi-FI enabled router and the vast majority of people have broadband. I do not know a single person in The Villages who doesn't have broadband with Wi-FI enabled. This is most likely a non-issue and not worth fretting over.

I think there are many people who have no idea what broadband and WiFi are, or what their use is around the home. It might be nice if someone who is really technically knowledgeable would give an explanation on here of both broadband and WiFi. I have to admit to being one of those who did not realize that you can pick up free WiFi in many public places. When travelling the first thing I do is check my settings for the local free WiFi before I start using my phone.

Someone said to me the other day that using a phone while traveling was very expensive, they had no idea that WiFi is available if you search for it. If you are checking emails or searching on your phone without WiFi you are using Data which can mount up.

Cricket for us for 4 years, never a problem so I can’t even comment on customer service! Would never go back to Verizon or AT&T.

Great idea to use Public WiFi if you are just surfing. Please don't access any credit card info or bank info while in an unsecured situation like that. Your private info can get snagged in a second. :pray:

I don't steal wifi because you don't have to. I use my phone in airports and other public places where free wifi is available, all you have to do is check your settings to see whether or not free wifi is offered.

Never mention, thought, typed anything about stealing. I was trying to be helpful. In those places that free wifi is available is exactly the place to not use any personal information as it can be snagged by someone that you would surely not want to share it with. Free WIFI is NOT SECURE. That was my point. Never anything about stealing. If it's FREE how could you STEAL it?

No good deed goes unpunished.

Wow..... Nucky you didn't deserve that! :ohdear:

Peace out, Nucky. Can't help everyone...geez!

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What Nucky said.

Thanks Fraugoofy, I still want to help this poster from getting in trouble in a public place with WIFI but don't know if it would be received well. I goof around on here a whole lot maybe it's difficult to accept when I'm serious. Peace Out Fraugoofy and thanks.

I will be changing from Verizon once the equipment I have is paid off. I have liked Cricket because for about 4 years njbchbum has been happy with it and we travel the same route back up north. Her steadfast approval is good enough for me.

If you are going to a website with your browser that supports https then you are pretty safe on a public network but there are still some vulnerabilities (someone would really want to get at you and you would need to make some poor choices). If you are using an app to go to a bank or other such website it would make sense to make sure encryption is being used but again there could be some vulnerabilities. Using VPN software on your device in a public network makes everything safe unless the NSA is after you.

There are plenty of websites that will explain communications and the internet in varying degrees of detail. The short story is that broadband is a high-speed connection to the internet. It is typically provided via cable TV companies and phone companies using various cabling technologies. Wi-Fi is a wireless connection protocol to the internet (essentially to a local router) that eliminates the need to have an ethernet cable to your devices from your router. Broadband to your house requires a router that will typically have both ethernet ports (there might be some devices you want hardwired to your router) and a Wi-Fi transmitter/receiver. Consumer Wi-Fi products have been available for 20 years and Wi-Fi has become ubiquitous.

:ho: We changed from Verizon to Cricket several years ago and have not looked back. Very happy with the service, coverage, and price. The best part is the CUSTOMER SERVICE we receive when needed. The store employees in Spanish Springs are great as someone else posted not too long ago. :eclipsee_gold_cup:

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner, another great recommendation for Cricket. It's looking better all the time. Thanks, CWGUY! :mademyday: