Internet Data Experience in Alaska & Canada

I switched us to Cricket Wireless phone service prior to leaving for Alaska last May. They provide unlimited cell/text/data in Canada. We also have Google Fi for phone/data that will work in Canada. I keep the Fi service paused when not in Canada so there is no monthly cost when I don’t need it.  (pretty cool feature)

Cricket has a $90 per month deal, provides service for two phones with unlimited data in US/Canada/Mexico and that includes 15 GB hotspot data for each phone. (30GB total per month) I believe its called the “More” plan.  I already used the 15 GB hotspot data for the month and I was just able to add another 15 GB hotspot data to my phone for the month for $10   Cricket has really exceeded my expectations.  Not something I get to say,  ever!

Cricket is a prepaid service and it’s owned by and runs from AT&T towers, so it’s had service pretty much everywhere in Canada and Alaska. (except where there isn’t any service from any carrier.  There are quite a few miles of road where no one has service both in Canada and Alaska)

Our Mobley and FMCA Vzb hotspots don’t include any service in Canada, so they could only be used in Alaska and the lower 48. The Mobley and Cricket had excellent service for most of Alaska, just not in Tok.  Our Verizon hotspot barely worked at any place we stayed in Alaska, except it worked well in Anchorage.

And something else that unexpectedly worked was the WiFi calling.  We were on the Cassiar at a campground that had WiFi but no cell within hundreds of miles.  I was able to make a call to get reservations for the next night for us and our traveling companions.  We thought we were going to need to go out to a payphone in the campground in the rain to get them.

I was writing this post offline as no one has service 20 miles west of Watson Lake at the Cassiar highway junction. We were putting up our sign in the Sign Post Forest yesterday during a torrential rain  storm.  Today it’s Snowing, so I’m glad we did it during the rain.     i did some updates to this post while in Stewart BC prior to posting it.

Once we are back to the lower 48, I will probably switch our Cricket plan back to the $30 each per month plan as our other hotspot plans will cover what we need while traveling the US.

From my usage while traveling to and from Alaska, Cricketwireless was practically amazing.