I was wondering if there is a way to take a "Test Drive" with Straight Talk. I have a VZW iPhone 5s, which their website says is BYOP compatible. Would it be possible to buy one of their sim kits, fire my phone up w/o porting my number over ( using the number that comes with the sim) and if I like it, then getting another ST sim to use with the porting process. And if it doesn't meet my expectations, putting my old VZW sim back in and just carry on as if nothing happened. Would this work? If I don't port my number over initially, will VZW cancel my service if the phone disappears from their network for a few days? Any insight is appreciated. Thx
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Carrier Straight Talk "Test Drive"
- Thread starter 1981d
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You are correct, that is all you have to do. Just swap the SIM cards and you should be good to go. Your phone will automatically download straight talks carrier settings so you can get data/mms without messing around with the APN. Verizon could care less if your phone randomly disappeared from their network. As long as you are still paying your bills that is. When you buy the sim card, make sure it is the at&t version, unless you want the T-Mobile version which has less LTE coverage. I think the at&t SIM card is blue and the T-Mobile SIM card is pink/magenta. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the sim card kit comes with both an at&t and t-mobile sim, so you can just pick. If you are ordering online, just select the option that your phone is an at&t phone.
If this will save you any time or effort... Depending on the SIM card you'll get the same reception and coverage as that carrier. By this I mean if you get the att sim you'll get att coverage. But I would definitely try it out though. Keep in mind if you have an iPhone 5s it's unlocked so you can use any sim
Yeah, ATT will work great for me. It's just that I got burned by Cricket several years ago with their coverage map bearing no relationship to reality, so I'm a little gun shy about MVNO's. I was just looking for a way to be sure b4 jumping ship. thanks for the feedback
So, this worked out perfectly. I bought a "burner" sim kit, and activated it on my VZW iPhone 5s w/o porting a number over. I then traveled everywhere I usually go and found that Straight Talk does in fact have AT&T service & coverage. I even was able to multitask while on a phone call, which u can't do on verizon. After the successful test, I bought 2 new kits and ported over me & my wife's numbers from VZW. I had some issues getting the number to port over, but a few minutes on the CS chat fixed all that. I know $60 was a lot to spend for a burner kit to take a "test drive", but the peace of mind was worth it.
Regarding Straight Talk generally, I have found that I have AT&T LTE phone coverage everywhere I go, with 3gbs of high speed data for each phone, with unlimited calls & text for $90 per month for two lines. I was paying VZW $150 per month (plus fees) for 4gb of shared data(2gb for each phone), all else being equal. The only downsides are the loss of personal hotspot and visual voicemail, but I can easily live without those for $60 a month savings. And who knows, they might add it some time in the future.
Regarding Straight Talk generally, I have found that I have AT&T LTE phone coverage everywhere I go, with 3gbs of high speed data for each phone, with unlimited calls & text for $90 per month for two lines. I was paying VZW $150 per month (plus fees) for 4gb of shared data(2gb for each phone), all else being equal. The only downsides are the loss of personal hotspot and visual voicemail, but I can easily live without those for $60 a month savings. And who knows, they might add it some time in the future.
I'm doing something similar to this right now too. I'm trying the special deal T-Mobile sim that you can purchase at Walmart. It's $30/month for unlimited data (throttled after 5gb of 4G LTE), unlimited texts, and 100 minutes of calling. It sounds too good to be true, since right now I'm paying over $200/month for 2 phones on Verizon. So going from $219 I think was my last bill to $60 for two of these T-Mobile sims would be a huge huge difference. So this week I'm trying out the T-Mobile sim in one of my phones, and purposely trying to make some calls, use data while on the road between home and work, see how it goes to see if the service is similar. I *was* able to make some good sounding calls from within my home, which I know not everybody is able to do with T-Mobile, so it might be ok in my area, we'll see.
As a kind of post script to this, I was able to sell the extra SIM cards and CDMA access codes on Ebay for about $30, which helped recoup some of the $$ I spent on the "test drive" kit and service plan. All told I was out about $30 for the peace of mind of knowing that Straight Talk really was exactly the same as having ATT. Also, the free youmail app makes up for the loss of visual voicemail.
Also, the free youmail app makes up for the loss of visual voicemail.