Straight Talk vs. AT&T

As I stated in my previous post, I am a heavy data user and I have never had an issue with straight talk. If you pay your bill on time they will never shut off your service. Having said that, however, if you don't pay by the due date they will shut it off that day. If you buy a 3 month, 6 month or one year plan the savings are even better and you never have to worry about monthly phone bills. I pay monthly and I always get several reminders throughout the month about the service end date. I have found that Straight Talk Customer Service is as good or better that AT&T. You have some long hold times and difficult language accents to deal with, but really the only times I have ever even used customer service is initial activation, and when I wanted to change phone numbers. The service is very dependable. My son had Cricket service and it was very sporadic coverage. Straight Talk service areas ARE AT&T. The only real difference, other than cost, is you don't have a store to walk into for service like you do with AT&T. I don't think you can get the sim cards at WalMart any longer, I believe you have to order them online and therefore wait a few days to receive it. I had to cut the sim card down to Nano size for my iPhone 5 but that was super simple. You can get someone at one of the mall phone service places to do it for you if your not comfortable doing it yourself.

617aircav said:

Wanted to try straight talk but when I searched for reviews it's scared me. Too many complaints about service being cut off without warning. I need my phone to work all the time for work and can't risk a breakdown in communication. My current AT&T plan is $85 and straight talk would be $45. That's $450 in savings in just 10 months and would more than pay for my AT&T eft. But I need the guarantee that my phone will always work and ST can't provide that. If they were clear on what is abuse then I could try it.

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I had a 4S on ST before I went to AT&T for the iPhone 5. I encountered no service issues whatsoever. Even though I'm paying about $20/month more being on AT&T, I have LTE and I get a subsidized phone every year and a half since I really can't justify dropping $600+ on a contract free iPhone.

But all in all, ST is good value for the money. Regardless of the stories you heard.

I would just like to add that an alternative to straighttalk is Net10 such offers the same deal as ST. $45 a month with auto refill for unlimited everything, and they actual spell out below their system works. Here is a quote explaining how it works:

I don't use straighttalk, But I do use net10 which offers the same deal. I started the 1st if this month and so far everything is going well, unlimited talk/text/data. Contrary to the straighttalk unlimited terms which are very vague on specific limits and such, net10 puts it in clear terms, they give you 50,000 minutes a month for talk/text/data. Obviously, calls deduct from that on a minute by minute basis. Texts use 0.5 minutes I believe, and data I haven't quite figured the conversion, it may just be mb to minute. In case you didn't look it up out if curiosity, there are only something like 43,000 actual minutes in a month, so you should be good.

So far I've used 7:45 of talk time, and about 1.9GB of data and I'm still going strong. Download speeds are between 3-8Mbps based on my experience (all the way from PA to FL and anywhere in between).

Hope this helps!

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I had ST for 2 years on iPhone 4S. The upsides were great vs ATT, but now that I have LTE, there's no going back, it's 10x as fast. Not sure why the OP complained about battery, I don't have to recharge often, it lasts all day on LTE. I think the battery issues may be for those going in and out of LTE coverage, then it eats up quick.

Anyhow, +100 for the ATT option, once you go LTE you can never go back. Luckily I'm on a mobile share, and at my company's 28.5% discount I pay about $52 per phone (4 lines), each with 2.5GB data, and unlim talk and text. Sweet deal, and they support their customers, unlike ST

No LTE on straight talk and yes there is a data limit. I know people who have been cut off for repeated data use violations. If you're a casual data user though it is a great deal for the money.

Buy a used 4S for like $300 on Craigslist and you're set.

I'm not quite sure where people are going or live that roaming is an issue. Especially with coverage the way it is today. Ok, remote rural or long distance travel or traveling to other countries might cause some roaming issues but for the majority of people who live in or near cities roaming really isn't an issue. I am using an iPhone 5 on Straight Talk, I live in southern California and travel weekly to the Grand Canyon area of northern Arizona. Even traveling across the desert area between the California Coast and Arizona and even at the bottom of the Grand Canyon I have regular reception, no roaming. Granted there are some areas in the Canyon where reception is unavailable. I tether my laptop often when I visit the beach for the day. I have never been throttled or shut down for excessive data use. I do know people who said they were terminated for excessive data use while on Straight Talks or Net 10s unlimited plans, but after further questioning they were using tethered devices to watch Netflix movies or leaving tethered devices attached and running overnight or while away from the device. Really? Again, as I said in my previous posts I am a consistent high data user, 10 to 15 Gs of data a month and I have never had a disruption in service. And again, the AT&T maximum data plan of 5 Gs wouldn't work for me. I was trying to compare the Unlimited Straight Talk plan to the largest AT&T plan since AT&T does not have an unlimited plan. LTE vs 3g? LTE is defiantly faster, however LTE is also a data hog. If your on a Limited Data plan you may have a problem, especially if your using Netflix. My point is this: Everyone has different needs so each one of us has to assess the available options with regard to which plan best fits our personal needs. I guess cell phones and mobile service is like everything else in life. Imagine that!

ALSO AT&Ts LTE is only available in about 30 "Cities" right now, Verizon about 200 cities. So chances are the majority of people are HSPA+ anyway, despite the commercials. BTW Straight Talk in my area on my phone is using AT&Ts HSPA+. Since Net 10 uses AT&T in most cases it will have HSPA+ also.

I couldn't care less about LTE

Doing the math made it very clear.

Buying an iPhone without a contract and getting ST or Net10 would cost $500 less over the same two year period.

$199 + ($85 x 24) = $2239

$650 + ($45 x 24) = $1730

It's equivalent to getting a lower interest rate on a loan.

I'll keep my $500, and they can keep their LTE.