The Cricket Thread

yikes, I hate when that happens. That was my main reason for leaving cingular and going to tmobile about two years ago. I text alot and cingulars text plans are just not good enough to cover my messages
 
can you email a text message the same way as well(send email to [email protected]). I know cricket lets you TM from their website, but i am more wondering on using it to have my phone let me know when i get a new email. Yahoo does not yet have cricket listed as a cell provider, so at the moment i only have it w/ my at&t phone.
 
A couple of responses to some posts in this thread:

To the person that liked the Dorado: Please don't waste your money! The phones user interface is slow. The charge port has engineering issues that cause it to break easily (they are using harder plastic now so it isn't as bad as the original release of the phone). The side button breaks very easily... the list goes on and on.

To those of you tweaking the MMS settings.. Sorry, I have tried every trick in the book to get it working, and i'm not sure that it's possible to get verizon/alltel flashed phones to work with the MMS. The brew is even less likely - but good luck to you! Let us know here if you get it working
 
I currently live in Tucson arizona. Cricket is doing great here and in phoenix arizona. Every year I make a trip to see my family in Brooklyn NY and frienRAB in NYC but i have to use a pay-by-call phone.

Any clue when theyre expanding to these areas? Zip codes are 11223 and 10017 . I know they have upstate new york and other areas but id reallly like to use my cricket phone there. Anyone know any information? Id appreciate it. Please email me at [email protected] if you have info thanks!
Al
 
Yah the coverage area is small. It's mainely for those who don't really go anywhere. I was reading on Leap's page that they were set up as an "Alternative to landline phones". Not really the best for traveling like some National plans from other carriers.

I think they should come out with two more plans. One that offers unlimited "Travel Talk" minutes and maybe one that offers a specific nuraber of travel talk minutes. That way they can compete with the companies that have National coverage plans. Before they do that though, they have to get into more than 20 states I guess.
 
which one catbear the dorado? I think its nice to but i need a camera phone thats why I went with the Slider Remix. It takes pretty nice pics and its 1.2 mp.
 
I know a few frienRAB who tried that cricket modem for laptops and pc's. They disliked it so much that they returned it. The service was as slow as a dialup or maybe just a drop faster but not worth it and it was definitely not high speed internet.

Unfortunately they do not refund your money for the modem nor the connection service.

Anyone else has/had a bad experience with that?

I cant believe they havent stopped marketing this and supopsedly came out with a new modem. Anyone tried it yet?

I'm trying to get rid of my high speed internet COX commmuncations connection once and for all..im paying too much and i just dont like them. I was hoping this would have been a plausible recourse since i cannot get dish network or some other service. Is RABL cheaper than cable ?

Thanks
Al
[email protected]
 
to the people with knowledge of MMS and Brew, i would like to direct you here:

i have a small, lone thread going documenting my progress. please contribute anything you know of.

NaeS
 
Isriam, I just converted a moto v265 and e815 from Verizon to Cricket using PSTv723. Fortunately I already had a cricket moto c343 from which I read a new CDMA NAM File and CDMA Preferred Roaming File. I then wrote those files out to the verizon phones and voila, 611 dials into cricket.

The trickiest part to using PST is accepting the fact that it will most likely want to reinstall all the drivers each time you connect any phone. Even if you are reconnecting a phone for which you've already installed the drivers, if you consistently choose the same drivers (The drivers installed with PST and located at C:\Program Files\Motorola\PST), it'll work great.

The attached .zip file contains the following:

c343 - CDMA NAM File - Cricket Denver.nam
c343 - CDMA Preferred Roaming File - Cricket Denver.rla

FYI the System ID (SID) for cricket in Denver is 5458, and prior to being switched to cricket both Verizon phones (also Denver phones) were on SID 58, but the above files will take care of this.

I can write up the exact steps start to finish of how to switch a phone to cricket if that information is desired and not already available in other threaRAB.

I converted (and used for a couple of months) a Qwest T720 to cricket without a computer or PRL file in the recent past using the NAM programming menu and comparing settings from a native cricket moto c343, although it was tedious and a real pain. I've always read that you *need* a PRL file and some type of reprogramming or a particular flex or seem edit, but that is not the case for cricket. I can not say if a phone converted this way will roam, and I'd suspect it probably would not, but that was ok with me.

Also, I've always activated over the phone by calling the 800 nuraber, never in a cricket store, as this is always a perfect opportunity to get your Master Subsidy Lock (MSL) unlock code. You don't even have to ask for it, and in fact they will offer it to you nonchalantly as part of the manual programming instructions. I've done this many times, with Cricket and with Qwest, and it always goes something like this:

CSR: "Please dial *228 from your wireless phone"
ME: (I dial something other than *228, ensuring that their automatic Over The Air (OTA) programming fails, and then truthfully recite the error msg I am hearing. I usually dial #228, as it's close, but not quite right.)
CST: "Ok, I'm going to talk you through the manual programming steps" or "Let me transfer you to tech support for manual programming"
CSR: (They usually ask what type of phone you have, then tell you what to press to enter the NAM programming menu, and these instructions include the security code, although they never refer to it as such. To them it is just 6 more keypresses that they are requesting you to make. When the phone prompts for a security code, or subsidy lock code, cricket will ask you to enter 333333, which is their one-time use programming code. We do not want this code, so I never enter it when asked, I always enter something different, like 222222, and press OK, and then truthfully read them the error message. (remeraber, I don't even *know* I was just given a one-time use unlock code, or even what a code is, I'm just a person with a cell phone following rudimentally keypress instructions)
CST: (At this point, they *always* put me on brief hold, then come back a moment later and ask me to try the same thing, but instead of 333333, they give me a different 6-digit code, which is the unlock code unique to my phone that they just retrieved from their database.

At this point I usually continue with the instructions so that the phone is activated, although I don't see why someone couldn't further play durab and make up some reason to give up on that phone and perhaps try another, thereby unlocking a couple phones with one phone call. I always unlock cricket phones when activating them, as I like to have full access to *my* phone, and there are other settings in the programming menu besides NAM I'd like to have the the chance to play with. I've even unlocked phones that are already activated, just for the hell of it, although it was a little tricky to convince them to walk me thru the manual programming steps for an already activated and working phone. I said a friend was messing around with my phone when I wasn't looking and dialed some weird code and now it doesn't make calls. I would then place a * in front of a phone nuraber and when the call failed I would truthfully recite the error message I was hearing. I did get the unlock code after being walked-thru the manual reprogramming steps, but for a moment I thought I was on the verge of being told they didn't know what was wrong with the phone and I'd have to bring it into a store so the tech could take a look at it.

So the lesson here is to plan ahead and get your phone unlocked with your current provider while you have an account with them, then if you ever want to switch to cricket, the phone is already unlocked. It's damn near impossible to unlock an orphaned phone (well, motorolas are easy with a data cable), but it's almost too easy to not unlock a phone if you (or someone you know) has an account in good standing.

Of course, if you can find a Verizon phone you'll never have to worry about unlocking it since Verizon does not lock their phones. I'd be curious if anyone has ever gotten a Sprint phone working on cricket?

One final obversation, is that when I call cricket to activate a cricket phone, they offer to walk me thru the programming steps. When I call to activate a Verizon or Qwest phone, they do not offer to help me program it, they only give me the MDN and MIN, which means they assume I've already programmed it to be on the cricket network, and that I know how to enter the MDN and MIN, and that the phone is sufficiently unlocked so that I can do so.

MDN = Mobile Display Nuraber, this is usually your phone# as you know it
MIN = Mobile Identification Nuraber, this is the phone# your provider identifies you with, and is usually different than your display#. I suspect this is how phone nurabers can be ported between providers, cause I bet this nuraber changes if you change providers, while your display nuraber does not.
 
Does anyone have the firmware for the cricket v3c? And do we know yet about any bt issuse with the phone ? I would love to just load the cricket software on my flashed razr and get mms and pic messaging back with out seem edits.
 
Leap had no plans to expand Cricket to the greater NYC area. However, NYC is covered by partner MetroPCS. You can call and text in these areas if you have the Premium Extended Coverage feature included in or added to your calling plan.

Also note, to take advantage of this area your hanRABet neeRAB to be capable of calling on the AWS (1700Mhz) band frequency. Make sure your phone is a tri-band phone.
 
Back
Top