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has anyone tried a factory-unlocked iphone on ST? you should be able to just modify the network settings manually on one of those. or does the fact its running on ATT somehow confuse the phone and make it use incorrect MMS settings etc?
 
Huh? You're missing the point entirely. LTE doesn't consume data in any more quantity than HSPA. For those who say "it's going too fast, I use more data" are merely saying they lack the self control to restrain from monitoring their data. If you use 2GB on LTE you get the same thing as you get with 2GB of HSPA, you just get it a lot faster.

Clearly there are a lot of people here who don't understand the concept of data allotment vs pipe speed. The new technology allows you to get more faster, and CAN use more, but you have to use more, it doesn't just use more by default.

I swear, you resist technology so much, maybe you best just go buy an iPhone Original, then you'll be at 2G and never have to worry about it. By your logic, an iPhone 2G would be far superior to a 3G, or 4 or 5, lol.

Gotta love uneducated blind consumers.

You are correct EXCEPT for streaming video through YouTube!! I watch a lot of YouTube videos and Facebook videos so let me explain.
If you have an LTE iPhone and an hspa iPhone with 2gb I would probably go through my data faster on LTE when watching YouTube because lets say you wanna watch a video that's 2 min long and say 50 mb. The LTE iPhone would load 50 mb instantly wether I choose to finish the video or not! Now the hspa or 3G iPhone would load it as fast as its playing so lets say the video is dumb 15 sec in and I get off YouTube then the iPhone with hspa would of only loaded about 10 mb before quitting therefore you technically would use more data with LTE!!
 
If this was the case, why doesn't my rate plan drop when I'm out of contract?

I'm assuming it's the same in the US as it is here in Canada... when you're on contract we're only allowed to pick a plan costing a minimum $50 or $55. They've calculated that's how much they need to make off of you to be able to sell you a $650?$700? phone for $200. When you're off contract you're able to go on to ANY plan (even the crappy $30/$40 plans) but of course don't expect them to offer you that bit of advice, they want you to either re-sign your contract or be dumb enough to stay on the same plan that you got when you signed up.

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I pay about $90/month including taxes and fees.

I've read about people with these insanely high monthly bills for their cell phones and I've never understood why do people pay so much unless of course you're a big power user and need all the perks that come with it.

Here in Canada about $60/65 gets you everything you need (everything most* people need). Even that I find too expensive and I'll be switching my girlfriend over to a unlocked phone on a cheaper plan when the 5S comes out.
 
has anyone tried a factory-unlocked iphone on ST? you should be able to just modify the network settings manually on one of those. or does the fact its running on ATT somehow confuse the phone and make it use incorrect MMS settings etc?

That's exactly what happens.

The iPhone detects that an AT&T SIM has been inserted into the phone and applies the settings that AT&T has provided to Apple.

One of those settings disables the menu where you can configure things like cellular data and MMS.
 
This may be the last straw. The iPhone 5? At Wall*Mart? On their prepay plan?

The Apple brand is becoming like Volkswagen was in 1965.

I didn't realize Apple products and phones were status symbols, especially since relatively speaking, real status symbols can only be purchased by so many people. Anyone who saves a few hundred dollars can buy an iPhone even minimum wage workers and afford a sensible plan. Maybe back in 2007 it was when it first came out, but when even my niece and nephew play with their own iPhone 4s (no service), their rarity has ceased.

WalMart? So, what? It's a price-conscious store. Ever been to Sam's Club? Then you've essentially been to WalMart.
 
So... when you have a bigger pipe you *MUST* consume more? If you don't watch netflix today, when you have more bandwidth, now you *HAVE* to watch netflix? :confused::confused::eek:
When you have more bandwidth, Netflix sometimes switches you over to a higher quality stream, making you use up more data per minute of streaming video.
 
I didn't realize Apple products and phones were status symbols, especially since relatively speaking, real status symbols can only be purchased by so many people. Anyone who saves a few hundred dollars can buy an iPhone even minimum wage workers and afford a sensible plan. Maybe back in 2007 it was when it first came out, but when even my niece and nephew play with their own iPhone 4s (no service), their rarity has ceased.

WalMart? So, what? It's a price-conscious store. Ever been to Sam's Club? Then you've essentially been to WalMart.

It's no longer has any status. A status symbol isn't purchased at Walmart with 0% financing OAC!
 
The logic behind this comment is baffling. The transfer of 2 GB of "information" to your phone is the same information at HSPA and LTE, you just get it faster at LTE speeds, so when you're trying to look up a phone number it takes 1 second instead of 10 seconds to access the same info.

It's like saying if you had to chose between home internet capped at 1GB per month that it's better to have dial up instead of cable\dsl because it's the same amount of data. WTF... use some common sense people. Same data consumption, but stuff gets to you 10x as fast with LTE.

You are absolutly right but he is to. I've used a lot more data over LTE for some reason esoecially while watching youtube. And where LTE is bad is lets say you want to watch 60 seconds of a you tube video and the video is a hours, your going to download 10x more useless data that your not using.
 
Can I have my own iPhone and buy just SIM?

Last year, when I spent holidays in US, I had huge problem with getting just SIM for my phone. I have tried also in Straight Talk. Actually I gave up. Is it posssible now? I live in Europe (Poland) and it is very strange for me, because we can get starter (just SIM) in almost all petrol stations and groceries. :)
Mirek
 
You're missing the point. Who cares if you can download at blazing fast speeds if you can download so much so quickly you exceed your cap for the month in a few days? We're not talking about "looking up a phone number". We're talking about downloading large files, streaming media, etc. You know...the applications that make a high speed data connection worthwhile in the first place?

If you can download 1 MB / second and they cap you at 2 GB, that's 2,000 seconds. Just over 33 minutes.

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If this was the case, why doesn't my rate plan drop when I'm out of contract? The price of subsidizing your phone isn't built into your rate plan. The cost of service is high because they want to make money off you regardless of if you are in or out of contract.

You got that wrong. The price of subsidising your phone _is_ built into your monthly rates. However, after two years, when your contract runs out and you paid the full price of your phone, they _still_ continue to charge you. Which means the companies profit goes up by maybe $25 a month.
 
Well, this might make me switch now. Hopefully they'll get the 5S and then I'll leave AT&T and cut my bill in half!
 
Ive been on ST for a few months with a 4S. It is not LTE, and on ATT's backbone. For the money no complaints, and visual voicemail will not work, but you can use Youmail instead for free.

I used ST before I had my iPhones and liked it. I see no value in a iPhone 5 as I would of got one.

Very satisfied. Besides buggy stuff with iMessage a happy customer
If you're using an iPhone 4S, you wouldn't see LTE on AT&T either.
 
STRAIGHT TALK SUCKS! I recently talked a friend in to switching over so he would buy my old phone and he's had nothing but problems. ST will throttle you at the drop of a hat, especially if you try to stream youtube over their network. You have been warned!
 
Last year, when I spent holidays in US, I had huge problem with getting just SIM for my phone. I have tried also in Straight Talk. Actually I gave up. Is it posssible now? I live in Europe (Poland) and it is very strange for me, because we can get starter (just SIM) in almost all petrol stations and groceries. :)
Mirek

You can get a pre-paid sim from an AT&T store. I did this 2 years ago when I was on holiday there. The staff at AT&T weren't too knowledgable about it working in an iPhone but once I entered the correct APN settings (found online) it was fine.

Was a little expensive compared to the UK pay as you go, but worth it for me so I didn't get lost etc.
 
If I ever lose my FAN discount, I will be all over this. Right now I pay $70 a month for 450 talk (unlimited mobile to mobile w/ 3000 roll over mins), unlimited text, and unlimited web with at&t.

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If you can download 1 MB / second and they cap you at 2 GB, that's 2,000 seconds. Just over 33 minutes.

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You got that wrong. The price of subsidising your phone _is_ built into your monthly rates. However, after two years, when your contract runs out and you paid the full price of your phone, they _still_ continue to charge you. Which means the companies profit goes up by maybe $25 a month.

t-mobile is the only US carrier where your monthly bill changes b.c of a subsidized phone. att/verizon/sprint your bill is the same whether you paid full price for your phone or got it at a subsidized price.

With those major 3 carriers it only makes sense to extend your contract if you would stay with them otherwise...saves you A LOT on your phone.
 
Great news! Nice to see Apple spreading their products to new low price carriers instead of an AT&T monopoly.

It's an illusion. Take a pie and cut it up into 4 slices. Take same pie cut it up into 16 slices. The pie's size never changes.

Buy a phone a full price and pay lower monthly fees. Buy a subsidized phone and pay higher monthly fees. Ultimately pretty much the same $ is coming out of your pocket, just different increments at different times.

Wide choice of carriers is a good thing, but let's not think one is less expensive than another. You get what you pay for.
 
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If this was the case, why doesn't my rate plan drop when I'm out of contract? The price of subsidizing your phone isn't built into your rate plan. The cost of service is high because they want to make money off you regardless of if you are in or out of contract.
Since no one knows what the true "Cost" of service is for a single user, there's no way to know what the real margin is on plans. For all we know the extra $400 or so they shave off the iPhone price could be paid off by a user in 6 months, then it's just gravy for the telco's.

Kinda why I'm interested in the new t-mobile plans...

I'm not saying the contract carriers' plans are good for the consumer. I was just replying to the OP's assertion that paying monthly for a phone wouldn't fly, compared to subsidized pricing. I agree that it would be nice if the contract carriers would adjust monthly pricing after the contract was up in order to allow for the fact that the subsidy is over. But that would put more transparency in their plans, and they don't want that transparency.

However, let's be honest here. How many people really keep their smartphones much beyond the two year contract? Heck, a lot of people (most?) have trouble keeping theirs more than a year, and "need" to have the latest and greatest hardware as soon as it comes out.
 
Very interesting. Surely, they won't cut back on LTE.. there's no point in getting the phone without that.

And for an unlimited plan, this sure is a steal. (relatively speaking)
 
I don't see how this really saves anything. I pay $150/month for two iPhones on AT&T with unlimited text and data, and more minutes than we can ever use. (I think I have 8000 rollover minutes right now.) The old iPhones can be sold for almost as much as a new phone costs every two years, so they are basically free at this point. So... $140 with crippled voicemail or $150 for the real thing. Wow, $10. How does that add up to $950?

Hi Arcady,

The $140 you mention includes the cost of financing the new phones on two contracts. The cost would only be $90 total a month if you had your own iPhone. In order to do a true comparison, you need to either factor in the cost of the phones on both companies, or neither on both companies. On AT&T, you paid at least $200 for the phone, so that needs to be factored in.

I've done the comparison on this before when I've considered going to ST when it was time to either renew my AT&T contract and get a new phone. It breaks down like this (in my case, I was looking at the 64GB, and my AT&T bill is around $150 for 2 lines):

AT&T:
Subsidized 64GB iPhone = $399 * 2 phones = $798
$150/mo for 2 lines (unlimited talk, text, 4GB shared) @ 24 month contract = $3600
Total Spend for phone and 2 years of service = $3600 + $798 = $4398

ST:
Unsubsidized 64GB iPhone = $849 * 2 phones = $1698
$90/mo for 2 lines (unlimited talk, text, 2GB per line) @ 24 months (month to month) = $2160
Total Spend for phone and 2 years of service = $2160 + $1698= $3858

Difference: $4398 - $3858 = $540/ 24 months = $22.50 savings per month

*updated above numbers to reflect two phones, as I originally posted with just one phone purchased*

So there is a savings if you go with ST. However, you wont get LTE (at least not that we've seen), and VVM has been known to be an issue (not sure if they fixed it, now that they are officially supporting the iP5 now). Guess it's a matter of what's more important. Saving $22.50+ a month, but some limited features, or full features but more money.
 
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My AT&T contract is up in a few months and I bought my 5 off contract (So as to not extend another 2 years...)

This is precisely what I was waiting for. If it supports LTE

Highly unlikely. Such services typically come with a full on block system wide so no LTE, no MMS, perhaps even no visual voicemail. Certainly no tethering, FaceTime on 3G etc

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This is true. I don't know how successful they are going to be in selling the phone for $649 plus tax, even with the installment plan.

Actually they could be quite. Because this is more how all services should be. You pay full price or installments that are a separate line item from phone service so once that part is over you are paying less. Unlike AT&T etc where you basically overpay for our device because that roughly $15 a month doesn't drop off or you pay it even if you bring in a full price phone.

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So they sell the plan as "no contract" yet if you cancel you're still paying monthly for your phone for 2 years.

For the phone yes. But nothing in regards to the service.

Generally you would have paid for the phone up front. But on AT&T service you pay the same $89.99 and up a month as someone on subsidy but you have no phone to pay off to AT&T so your bill should be lower by like $15 a month
 
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