Switching to Cricket Wireless – Signing Up – Part 3

In this article and video, I show you step-by-step how to sign up for Cricket Wireless online. I signed up for their $30 monthly plan that includes Unlimited Talk and Text with 1 GB of High Speed data. This is part 3 of my switching to Cricket Wireless series. Check out my article and video below.

In Case You Missed It…

This is the third part of my Switching To Cricket Wireless video, for part 1 and 2 see:
Switching to Cricket Wireless – Lower Cost But Less Data

Switching to Cricket Wireless – Reviewing the Plans – Part 2

Getting Started

Since I already have my Cricket Wireless nano SIM and a $40 Refill card I was ready to sign up.
I started from the Setup page on cricketwireless.com. It lists the following five steps of signing up on the left:

  1. Choose Your Plan and Features
  2. Checkout
  3. Insert SIM card into Your Device
  4. Power On Your Phone
  5. Activate Your Service

Sign up for Cricket Wireless

To get started I entered my ICCID and IMEI numbers on the right and clicked Continue. Your ICCID number is printed on the plastic add your SIM is attached to. Your IMEI number is your phone’s serial number. You can find it by dialing *#06# on your phone.

After clicking continue it asked me if I’m a New Cricket Customer or an Existing Cricket Customer. I chose New Cricket Customer.

Select Your Plan

I chose the $30 plan with 1GB of high speed data.

Select Your Add-On Features

Since I chose the $30 plan, the only two available Add-Ons were a free Deezer trial and Add 1GB of High Speed Data for $10 a month. I skipped both add-ons and clicked continue.

Choose Your Phone Number

I had to either choose Get a New Cricket Number or Transfer My Number. I chose to transfer my number and clicked Get Started.. After that I entered my phone number and clicked Submit. After clicking submit it said the transfer looks good and reminded me not to cancel my current service until the transfer was complete.

There was Number Transfer Checklist displayed on the right reminding me I’d need some additional information about my current wireless account to transfer my number. This included:

  • Account Number
  • Account PIN, password, or passcode
  • Last four digits of SSN
  • Zip Code for the account

Note that your Account PIN isn’t the PIN code you use to unlock your phone. Its a security code for your account information. Call you current phone company if you don’t know this information. After getting my info ready I clicked submit.

Sign up for Cricket Wireless

Cart

Next, I ended up in the cart. It showed my SIM card number and the $30 plan I selected earlier. I clicked continue.

SIM Card Setup

Next, I filled in a form with four parts. They were:

  1. Create Account
  2. Payment Info
  3. Transfer Number
  4. Review and Place Order

To create my account I entered my name, email, choose a userid, and select a password. For Payment Info, I entered my address and then has a choice to either enter a credit card number or a Cricket Refill card number. I entered my address and used that $40 Cricket Refill Card I had earlier. After entering the information, there was an option to enroll in Auto Pay. I skipped that for now, since I don’t qualify for the discount.
Sign up for Cricket Wireless
Next, I entered the account number and PIN for my current wireless provider so I could transfer my number. I clicked Continue.

Finally I reviewed my information and clicked Place Order.

After that my order was complete. I printed my order info by clicking the printer icon to the right of the order number. Now that my transfer was in progress all I needed to do was:

  • wait for an email update
  • activate my service, after the transfer was confirmed
  • install the cricket app after activation.

Waiting For Activation

Once my order was complete, I received an Order Completion email from Cricket. I completed the sign up process about 11:30 PM. The next morning I received an important update email from Cricket that stated my phone number transfer was delayed and I should contact support. I called support and they told me the transfer was scheduled for 11 AM that morning. Around 10:30 AM I received an email that I was ready to activate.

At this point, I wasn’t ready to activate. My wife took her iPhone SE to work that morning. Her existing wireless service remained active all morning. Later that evening, I clicked the Activate button inside the email I received. I was redirected to the cricketwireless.com and my service was activated.

Once my service was activated, the now-old-SIM no longer has service.. I was able to put the Cricket Wireless nano SIM in the iPhone SE. Shortly after, the status bar displayed cricket. After that I decided to make sure the iPhone was working. I was able to make and receive phone calls. I set up Visual Voice Mail and it worked properly.

I checked to make sure I could send and receive both text messages (SMS) and picture messages (MMS). I exchanged messages with my Nexus 5X Android phone to make sure that Messages were using SMS and MMS.

Finally, I ran a couple of speed tests. The speeds were slow. No where near 8Mbps down. That was expected as the AT&T network isn’t never too fast at my desk. I plan on running some more speed tests and will do a video comparing Cricket Wireless with Straight Talk’s AT&T network.

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