Pantech Crossover Android Phone on Consumer Cellular Network

It used to be that the AT&T GoPhone "pay as you go" service was one of the lowest cost providers, but a new policy changed that, and led me to change my phone service over to Consumer Cellular {CC}.

My cost runs about $25 a month and that includes 100MB of data and messaging. So it's a very good deal. I am able to use my IPhone 3GS on their network by using a custom APN.

I wanted to add a second line to my service for my wife. She has an AT&T Pantech Crossover running Android.

I signed up for a second line and got a SIM card. The second line adds $10 to my cost. The great thing is that both lines share the same data and messaging costs..e.g. you pay ONCE for data and share it on both phones.

AT&T phones work on CC network settings so I inserted the new SIM card in the Pantech and it worked right away....except for the data service.

I knew that I needed to update some network settings, perhaps create a custom APN, but I didn't know exactly how to do that...

From the CC web site I found a page with all the settings needed for a phone to work on their network, but the Pantech phone would not let me edit the APN settings.

I called CC support. Basically they said that the Pantech Crossover would not let me edit the APN settings and that I was out of luck!

But I thought that there must be a way to get the phone to work and I kept looking for a solution.

I found one...basically it is true that you cannot edit the default APNs, but you can add new ones!

A little more searching on the internet and I found a website that had the exact settings and instructions I needed.

http://www.unlockit.co.nz/mobilesettings/settings.php?id=179

I added the new APNs as defined in the above web site and everything works, data, voice and messaging.