Straight Talk + unlocked iPhone vs. Official Straight Talk iPhone - not equal!

This explains why ST BYOD plan doesn't sell nano sims, just regular and micro. Sad I'm on a 4S, factory unlocked, right now and I want to get the 5S whenever it comes out and stay with ST. Now, I may consider going back with ATT. We'll see what happens when the time comes.

i'd be smart to get a gsm version because of the resale value

madsci954 said:

This explains why ST BYOD plan doesn't sell nano sims, just regular and micro. Sad I'm on a 4S, factory unlocked, right now and I want to get the 5S whenever it comes out and stay with ST. Now, I may consider going back with ATT. We'll see what happens when the time comes.

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cut the microsim to nano size....it will work in the 5

dukebound85 said:

cut the microsim to nano size....it will work in the 5

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I might go this route, but I'll need to order a sim cutter, I don't trust myself enough to cut my sim without one.

corvus32 said:

No.

iPhone Configuration Utility doesn't do anything for MMS.

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OK, so what do I need to do?

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madsci954 said:

I might go this route, but I'll need to order a sim cutter, I don't trust myself enough to cut my sim without one.

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I went by one of those third party cell phone accessory stores in the mall and they punched my SIM for $5.

iPhone 5 Straight Talk Version

packgrad2000 said:

I was wanting to buy a GSM unlocked iPhone 5 and use it one Straight Talk. So, should I just buy it from Apple, and then can I still just buy the SIM from Straight Talk and cut it down? Does anyone know if you can just go to Walmart and get a SIM or does Straight Talk have to ship it to you? I just want to know the best way to get an unlocked iPhone 5 (GSM) on Straight Talk. Thanks.

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I purchased an iPhone 5 from Wal-Mart for Straight talk and they told me the same thing that it was only for Verizon. So I tried my straight talk sim on it anyway and it works. It isn't locked to Verizon. Although I haven't been able to get my MMS to work but I can make calls, text, and thanks to unlockit.nz.co I can use the internet as well.

Can I buy a Verizon iPhone 5 and activate it on the CDMA side if straight talk? Or do I have to get the official wal mart straight talk version?

Verizon iphone 5 will work just fine on straight talk.It's unlocked.

Dreamspiinner said:

Can I buy a Verizon iPhone 5 and activate it on the CDMA side if straight talk? Or do I have to get the official wal mart straight talk version?

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You need to buy the official "Walmart" Straight Talk iPhone for it to work on the CDMA side.

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Hungry&Foolish said:

Verizon iphone 5 will work just fine on straight talk.It's unlocked.

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This only applies to GSM plans from Straight Talk, not CDMA.

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this has been answered already.....I get confused with this stuff.

My family is planning on switching to Straight Talk. We are currently on Verizon and our contracts will be up next month. My main concern is that my daughter has a iPhone 5 I think(I believe.....it is the last one that came out). I have been trying to find out if she will be able to use her iPhone on Straight Talk. The cell towers that are close to us are Verizon towers. Her phone is not locked. I really don't understand the sim card thing.

I spoke to Straight Talk and the person said that it will work if I get a sim card compatible with her iPhone. I am not sure how to know if it is compatible.

I keep noticing people saying about getting a sim card and cutting it.......which is really confusing me now. lol Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you kindly,
Mrs Zellers

ZellersHT said:

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this has been answered already.....I get confused with this stuff.

My family is planning on switching to Straight Talk. We are currently on Verizon and our contracts will be up next month. My main concern is that my daughter has a iPhone 5 I think(I believe.....it is the last one that came out). I have been trying to find out if she will be able to use her iPhone on Straight Talk. The cell towers that are close to us are Verizon towers. Her phone is not locked. I really don't understand the sim card thing.

I spoke to Straight Talk and the person said that it will work if I get a sim card compatible with her iPhone. I am not sure how to know if it is compatible.

I keep noticing people saying about getting a sim card and cutting it.......which is really confusing me now. lol Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you kindly,
Mrs Zellers

Click to expand...

it's just a size thing. the iphone 5 uses a nano sim card which is smaller than the other iphone sim cards. you just need to get a nano card (unlikely), have one cut down for you, or do it yourself.

btw, are you guys going to be using much data? i was throttled on straight talk after only using 850 meg of data in a month. apparently the "unlimited" data is only for browsing, not streaming movies or music. or watching youtube. or doing anything normal people user their smartphones for. be very very careful moving to ST.

ZellersHT said:

Hi everyone,

Sorry if this has been answered already.....I get confused with this stuff.

My family is planning on switching to Straight Talk. We are currently on Verizon and our contracts will be up next month. My main concern is that my daughter has a iPhone 5 I think(I believe.....it is the last one that came out). I have been trying to find out if she will be able to use her iPhone on Straight Talk. The cell towers that are close to us are Verizon towers. Her phone is not locked. I really don't understand the sim card thing.

I spoke to Straight Talk and the person said that it will work if I get a sim card compatible with her iPhone. I am not sure how to know if it is compatible.

I keep noticing people saying about getting a sim card and cutting it.......which is really confusing me now. lol Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you kindly,
Mrs Zellers

Click to expand...

Straight Talk has 3 plans that are the same price ($45 per month) and come with unlimited talk, text, and web.

The best known plan uses AT&T towers. SIMs for this plan are no longer being sold.

The second SIM plan uses T-Mobile towers. SIMs for this plan are available from http://straighttalksim.com.

The third (and newest) plan uses Verizon towers. You need to buy a new iPhone from Straight Talk for this plan from http://iphone.straighttalk.com.

There's so much misinformation and confusion let me clear it right up. The ONLY iPhone 5 you can get running on Straight Talk's $45 plan on VERIZON is the OFFICIAL one you purchase from Straight Talk or Wal Mart. You can't take one you purchased elsewhere and put it on there. Period. So yes the official ST iPhone 5 RUNS ON THE VERIZON NETWORK. It is 3G data ONLY, no LTE.

The ST iPhone 5 is FULLY SIM UNLOCKED. This means you could throw a Straight Talk BYOD SIM card in (cut to Nano size) and run this phone on AT&T or T-Mobile etc. You may have issues with MMS as would be typical with the BYOD thing and I'm not delving in to that here. Generally talk, text, and internet access are easy to get up and running, MMS is typically the hitch.

MMS and 3G data work just fine on the OFFICIAL ST iPhone 5 on the OFFICAL carrier (VERIZON).

It's also possible to provision the OFFICIAL ST iPhone 5 on a Verizon MVNO like Page Plus or NextG Mobile. This is not for the faint of heart but can be done.

And why would you say you can't take your own unlocked iPhone 5 (such as an unlocked GSM handset) and put an existing ATT ST sim in it? I'm replacing my iPhone 4, which currently uses a ST sim on ATT, with an iPhone 5. I'll purchase an unlocked GSM phone, over the CDMA set directly from ST.

Have you done research on the terrible issues folks are having with ST? I would highly suggest you don't go with ST until you do.

I have rarely been as angry with a company as I was with them. Throttled after 3 weeks and about 850m of data because I dared to stream music for a little while. Chastised and berated in terrible English when I finally got through to CS.

Newbie here.....

OK, so.... I'm thinking of using ST with my Verizon unlocked 4S phone for a few weeks when I come back to the states to visit. After hearing and reading about horror stories of being throttled for data usage, I'm concerned that me using the GPS function via Google Maps (my new best friend over here!) will land me in the same boat.

Should I be worried?? :dunno:

Yes. Be worried. Use Net10 or something else instead

dewthedru said:

Yes. Be worried. Use Net10 or something else instead

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Rats. Even if it's just for a few weeks? I'll be coming back home and swapping my sim cards out at the airport.....

Man. What a pain. I thought I had a solution to *not* temporarily turning my Verizon post-paid unlimited account back on for a month...... Net10, huh? Lemme start learning about that. Thank you, dewthedru - appreciate the assist.

I had Straight Talk for 3 weeks and about 850meg before they throttled me.

dewthedru said:

I had Straight Talk for 3 weeks and about 850meg before they throttled me.

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I've been using Straight Talk with my iPhone 4 for a year without any problems. (other than the lack of visual voicemail) I occasionally use that much data over a 3 week period and no problems.

I don't say that to invalidate your experience, but to show that your experience is not universal to all Straight Talk customers.

I think the fact that I did the byop plan and was on AT&T made a difference.

And according to many of the threads I've been reading, ST has gotten much worse over the last couple months. I hope your experience continues to be good though.

Unlocked GSM iPhone 5 straight talk issues...

I own an unlocked iPhone 5 I use straight talk for $45 a month I cut my SIM to nano size using the template and a sharp pair of scissors, I am now using my iPhone 5 on the TFW (track fone wireless) network why isn't my internet working? Oh what's that straight talk??? You only support up to iPhone 4S on GSM? You want me to buy another phone in order to use internet or purchase an iPhone 5 from you on the CDMA (verizon) network? But what about my world ready unlocked iPhone 5? Grrrr, I'm leaving you straight talk, I am a world citizen and I demand a higher level of service. I have noted on my straight talk account that this is unacceptable. Oh wait there's a YouTube video that shows an iPhone 5 working on straight talk, all I have to do is update iOS 7... No, no, that didn't work either. I might end up switching carriers now, to tell you the truth I've been working at removing Walmart from my life for some time and this is the last thread they maintain on me soooo ******* you Walmart, I'm out.

I just wanted to add my two cents. I've had my daughter on the straight talk $45 plan for a long while. The first iPhone she used with them was the 3GS. After she wore that one out I gave her my old iPhone 5 and cut the sim down. The only thing that does not work right is mms. We've had zero problems with straight talk, she has reception everywhere she goes, fast respectable speeds and had never been throttled. Her friend has an "official" supported iPhone 5 on straight talk that uses Verizon's network and it's a slug! She has speeds of 2008 or slower.

bks691 said:

I just wanted to add my two cents. I've had my daughter on the straight talk $45 plan for a long while. The first iPhone she used with them was the 3GS. After she wore that one out I gave her my old iPhone 5 and cut the sim down. The only thing that does not work right is mms. We've had zero problems with straight talk, she has reception everywhere she goes, fast respectable speeds and had never been throttled. Her friend has an "official" supported iPhone 5 on straight talk that uses Verizon's network and it's a slug! She has speeds of 2008 or slower.

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Update to 7.0.3, I hope that helps as it helped others gain LTE and MMS support.

As for the friend she probably needs to switch phones to an official ST iPhone (no LTE though!) or maybe its possible to switch her to the GSM side?

Alohakanalu said:

I own an unlocked iPhone 5 I use straight talk for $45 a month I cut my SIM to nano size using the template and a sharp pair of scissors, I am now using my iPhone 5 on the TFW (track fone wireless) network why isn't my internet working? Oh what's that straight talk??? You only support up to iPhone 4S on GSM? You want me to buy another phone in order to use internet or purchase an iPhone 5 from you on the CDMA (verizon) network? But what about my world ready unlocked iPhone 5? Grrrr, I'm leaving you straight talk, I am a world citizen and I demand a higher level of service. I have noted on my straight talk account that this is unacceptable. Oh wait there's a YouTube video that shows an iPhone 5 working on straight talk, all I have to do is update iOS 7... No, no, that didn't work either. I might end up switching carriers now, to tell you the truth I've been working at removing Walmart from my life for some time and this is the last thread they maintain on me soooo ******* you Walmart, I'm out.

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Are you using a GSM phone or a CDMA phone? I have the new LTE card that I cut to Nano size for my previously AT&T (GSM) phone, and it works perfectly with LTE and MMS... Ordered the SIM card from Straight Talk.