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Gauging the new Straight Talk

jimsowden

jimsowden

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Sep 6, 2003
1,766
18
NY
I was an ardent Straigt Talk supporter about a year ago on my iPhone 4, with only a few drawbacks to the service: No visual voicemail, having to t-mobile sim swap to get APN and MMS settings correct, and of course the biggie; no option for LTE on compatible phones. Then they had that hiccup where they stopped selling the at&t sims for a while, and I thought all was lost.

Low and behold, I hear they're back in spades, that LTE has been bestowed upon us, and even that Straight Talk has released an official apple carrier profile - so no more fussing with APNs, and even activation of visual voicemail (a big deal if you have a mother that is as verbally prolific as mine).

I wanted to get the pulse of the MacRumors users who have Straight Talk on an iPhone 5 and up. How good is it? Should it woo me away from my $30 100/ul/ul T-Mobile plan?
 
They only thing you'd gain by switching is more minutes and probably better coverage.

I do like how they are being more transparent however. That is nice. They were pretty shady for a while. Maybe they still are. But they are at least heading in the right direction.
 
TacticalDesire said:
I do like how they are being more transparent however. That is nice. They were pretty shady for a while.
Click to expand...

It does sound like a viable and cheaper option than AT&T post paid and since it uses AT&T's network it could be a good deal.
What shady or nontransparent issues did you hear about? I'd like to get some info before considering going for it.
 
I just switched to ST yesterday, so not much to report. 5S does get LTE when in LTE zones, but even so I'm getting double the ATT data speed at home.

Visual voice mail, doesn't work, but I'm willing to put up with old-fashioned voice mail (where you have to listen to messages one-by-one) for the price savings.

No coverage differences, but wouldn't expect any.

Biggest improvement: ST has a $10 global coverage card that give 2 cents/min to landlines in Europe, 4 cents/min to mobiles (Sweden.) Skype charges 23 cents/min--a vast improvement if you need something like that!
 
Applejuiced said:
It does sound like a viable and cheaper option than AT&T post paid and since it uses AT&T's network it could be a good deal.
What shady or nontransparent issues did you hear about? I'd like to get some info before considering going for it.
Click to expand...

Before they cleared up their data usage policy they would shut down peoples accounts for vague, obscure and arbitrary reasons if they even said anything at all. This caused people to be without service and they'd lose their number. Plenty of people were able to call them and get their account reactivated but some people couldn't. However enough people have sued that I think they are cleaning up their act. I haven't had any issues in the almost year that I've had them.

Given the price and the reversal of some of their policies I'd say they're safe to go with at this point.
 
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