I've seen a lot of commercials over and over again while watching the World Cup, which is easily the most TV I've watched through my cable provider in weeks (if not longer), but only one of them constantly stood out to me. It has a bunch of interesting looking characters, and they're doing some every day things while they all share one blatant feature: a smile on their face. And the reason this stood out to me? Because it's a commercial for a wireless carrier.

The commercial in question is one from Cricket Wireless, a regional carrier that's striving to be a lot more. While Cricket may not be much when compared directly to the likes of AT&T or Verizon, or even when brought up next to Sprint or T-Mobile, it's still a well known service in the areas where it functions. Obviously, it needs to stay up with trends so that it can compete with those larger entities, so that they can edge in new subscribers each calendar year.

Obviously the other major (and minor) wireless carriers have commercials where the actors (or, in this case, animated creatures) are smiling, and trying to show everyone how happy they are because they're using the service being name dropped in the ad. Admittedly, the smiling characters initially got my attention, but it was the overall tone of the commercial in general. It wasn't telling me why I'd be happy with Cricket, at least not in the beginning. More than anything, it started by postulating a very simple question:

Are you happy with your carrier?

More than that, the advertisement asked, "When's the last time a carrier made you feel like this?" and then showed me the characters smiling, apparently overjoyed by . . . Cricket Wireless. Which is great! I'm sure there are more than a few people out there that are happy with the carrier, or any carrier out there, for any number of reasons.

But that made me realize that most people probably only think of their wireless carrier when something is going wrong. Whether it's the device they're using, the network coverage, or just a screwed up bill that raises the blood pressure, wireless carriers are a service that probably only ever see a real amount of attention from subscribers when something is going wrong. The argument could be made that a service like this, one that we use constantly every single day and just expect it to work for the money we pay it every single month, is bound to only get brought to our attention when something goes wrong.

Which, yes, that makes sense. I'd probably even agree with that. However, the question the commercial posed was one that's lasted a little while for me, and I wanted to ask all of you the same question. Honestly, if you thought about it, when's the last time your carrier actually made you happy? Considering the amount of money we spend on devices and service, one would hope the answer to that question is somewhere above, "Never" or "I don't remember."

So, I'm curious: let me know when the last time your carrier made you happy was. Or, perhaps on the flip-side, did you switch carriers because the previous one just made you unhappy so often? Let me know!