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And with that, we have a high school graduate.  Onward to an accounting and/or economics degree!

So I mentioned how I was giving AT&T the heave-ho and porting my numbers to Cricket Wireless. That’s exactly what I did…

Porting…awful. It took over 24 hours for two of my lines to become fully active. My line was up and running completely within an hour. But my kids’ lines were limited to voice only, no data or text for over a complete day.

Cricket’s support couldn’t give me any answers why. And the local store…let’s just say I’d call them incompetent at best. But that’s over and done with.

So other than a day of what I’d call awfulness, let’s get on with the actual service.

It’s been awesome.

Cricket Wireless is wholly owned by AT&T. And it utilizes the AT&T network. And we’ve found that places where we only got HPSA+, we now get LTE. Go figure.

And at just $90 flat, for three lines of unlimited, I think I’ve found a new wireless home. At least until a better option comes along.

There’s lots of talk in the media about how addictive our mobile technology has become, and without a doubt, a smartphone has been firmly gripped in my hand for more than a decade now.  I got my first Blackberry in 2004. And my first iPhone in 2007. And my first Android in 2009.  But I can put my smartphone down anytime I’d like.

It’s a Galaxy S8+, by the way. My current smartphone, I mean.

Regardless of my state of addiction, one thing I’m not keen on is the huge costs associated with feeding said addiction. So in the last couple of years, with AT&T continually increasing the cost of my grandfathered unlimited plans, I’ve switched to T-Mobile.  But T-Mobile’s coverage in my particular corner of the world is rather spotty to downright awful. Which saw me return back to AT&T once they debuted new unlimited plans in 2017.

And now, I’m about to wave bye-bye to AT&T yet again. Only not really, since I’m switching to Cricket, which not only uses AT&T’s spectrum and towers but is also wholly owned by them as well.

The cons I know going in include throttled speeds compared to AT&T. The pros I know going in…well, cutting my cell phone bill by more than 50% while still maintaining unlimited data for three lines. And of course, using AT&T’s towers.

It sounds like a win-win, and it’ll be an interesting experiment if nothing else.

 

…so I left the Apple ecosystem – from a mobile perspective – back in November. And went back to Android.

It’s something I do on occasion. And I fully expect to have an iPhone in my hand again at some point in the future. Just not this generation.

My eldest child has been on Android full-time since he traded his iPhone 5 for an HTC One M7 way back when. And he’s stayed with it.

Meanwhile, the youngest has never strayed from iOS, although he refuses to go to iOS 11.

I suspect I’ll always be willing to see what both sides have to offer. And whatever comes next, too.