Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Anyone use Straight Talk Wireless?

I'm pumping gas and laid my phone on the top of the car...as I pull out onto the interstate I hear a "bump" and look back and see it bouncing into oncoming traffic. Great move!!! I need a new phone and I'm due a "free" one from ATT but this new "next program" will make my current program go up in cost and don't want to make payments on the latest greatest. They are forcing you onto it and it sucks for those of us who don't want a new phone every year. We always "upgraded" to the next free one after our contract was up. I have not payed for a new phone in 6 years. I have checked all the majors companies and they are all doing the same thing.
Have any of you used Straight Talk?
What do you suggest for a husband and wife that use very little data and use a phone like a phone not a home computer most of the time. (my data usage is under 2gb)

Thanks,
Dave

I have straight talk and a dumb flip phone, works for me, 35.00/month. My GF has a smart phone and straight talk and she likes it well enough. The only drawback was the cost of the phone, 600.00, but the service is 45.00/month with no contract. As I understand it they use the same towers as Verizon, not sure if that is correct.

Thanks Abram! It's a pay-me-now or pay-me later situation. I like the month to month and I also heard it was Verizon towers.

I have a straight talk iphone ... has the same coverage as my verizon iphone. Had it for 4 years and no problems so far with service.

Edit ... My straight talk is on Verizon network and anywhere in Ga., Ms., Tn, or Bama I have the same # of bars on the straight talk as I do the true Verizon iphone.
Other than phone calls on the ST one all I do is text. So I cant comment on the speed of anything else.

I can tell you for fact that either there are glitches in their system or coverage is not the same. I got a friend that put his whole family on it and they have issues.

I have ST with ATT as the carrier and a Samsung S4 with 4G coverage. AT the time I got mine they only offered 4G with ATT as the carrier, ST only had 3G service with Verizon as the carrier, but that may be different now...

You can get it with any of the big carriers backing their service. Some stores only offer one or the other, but you can get which ever service you want. If you have a phone that is unlocked you can use it, just switch to a ST sim card (stick with the same carrier).

My wife and I have had it for about 2 years with zero issues, using AT&T as our carrier.

$42.50/month per phone for unlimited everything, with the first 5gb of data for free.

Straighttalk can be AT&T or Verizon. The phone you buy or plan to use will determine which network you will be on. If you look at the phone box in the store and it has a red coverage map, then it will be verizon, blue coverage map is At&t.

AT&T - You will get LTE speed
Verizon - You will only get 3g. If they ever change to 4g I will go back to the verizon side

I had the verizon side and like the phone coverage but the 3g was a little slow. I swapped to the At&t side so I could get LTE and it is a good bit faster. Coverage seems good in most of the places I go that are off the beaten path.

If you get in a busy place with a lot of people and the ATT or Verizon network is at capacity, you will get booted before the real customers do. Last time I was at the Georgia dome my data was extremely slow due to the load on the network. Occasionally you will drop a call when you have full signal. Other than that it is pretty good. Customer service is horrible in the rare circumstance you need them.

If phone is you primary concern, I would look at Family Mobile at Walmart. You will have to be ok with T-mobile coverage. It is probably the best deal around these days.

I had straight talk, but changed to Boost Mobile, samsung 4 for
cost of phone on special and $45 a month unlimited on sprints
network. It works fine, SCREW AT&T
Like someone said Look at walmart .

You can buy a used "unlocked" smartphone pretty cheap and use it with ST. I see people selling them all the time on facebook.

I'm in the process of going to ST myself from AT&T. My contract is up with AT&T and I will be able to keep my same Iphone 4 and number. I already called at&t and had them unlock my phone so it can be used with another provider. Swapping to ST should cut my bill in half and I'll get more data than with AT&T.

I had straight talk for about 3 years and it was ok but service was never that great, it also seemed to drop calls alot.

I have had best luck with Verizon service and if you go to Wal-Mart you can get a verison pre-pay no contract plan. I bought the nicest smart phone they had for about $175 and the unlimited plan is $60 a month. You also get the 4G with it.

I'm the king of cheap (but not cheap enough to go no phone route I guess) and we considered straight talk, T-mobile, etc. but stayed with Verizon after lots of calling and haggling with different providers. Currently paying $69.50/mth with two smartphones, unlimited talk, unlimited text, and 5GB (or more, see below) of shared data for 2 smartphones.

We are currently on the Verizon "More Everything" plan. I called to say I was leaving Verizon because I wanted no contract and they mentioned this one with promotions. It's not publicized well but they had to start offering to compete with all the straight talk folks that are leaving the big boys. Also, we live in Scottsboro so the only service worth a dang here is Verizon (or a straight talk/cheaper service that works off Verizon towers):

- Bought used Samsung Galaxy S3 off ebay in immaculate condition for $109 shipped to my door
- wife has an old iphone 4 we bought off Ebay for around $120 3 yrs ago
- Added 2 parents and one grandparent to our account since they were also out of contract and owned their own phones... I think you can add up to 8-10 lines
- Plan cost breakdown: $80/mth for plan which is unlimited talk and text with 10 GB of data to share with all lines. I get a 18% discount through my employer and 3% discount with autopay to my credit card (which I pay monthly and get hotel reward points that equal free vacations :))... so it's $63.20/mth, $15/line for 4 smartphones, and $20/line for 1 flip/dumb phone.

We split the plan cost in half between us and my parents and just let my grandmother pay $20 for her phone so our cost would be even less if we split the 63.20 by 3 instead of 2.

So... long-winded (and might not even be helpful) but that's what we do. None of us are die-hard techies, gamers, etc. so we don't even use half the data each month but it was/is such a good deal (6GB of data for 70/mth or 10GB for 80/mth) that we picked up the extra 4GB of data because that locks in our rate much like folks who had those early "unlimited data" plans with Verizon and were grandfathered in.

ok ,,, nope nope nope . just went through this .

all ST phones will not work on Verizon towers . some work on att towers, some work on Verizon towers. iphone 6 will work on Verizon no other iphone at this time will . the only good smart phone that will work on Verizon towers is the galaxy 3 . galax 3 will cost around $300 when you are done and its in your pocket . then its 45 plus tax each month . i like my phone and the service with the galaxy 3 . course i like the iphone 5c i had to swap back in better but service was badddddddd . it was on att towers .

Depends on where you are. I have been on AT&T here in mobile for years and haven't ever had a call dropped that I can recall and have maybe had 3 or 4 times when a call wouldn't go through.

Just make sure you get the straight talk phone that's for Verizon. Ive had that and had GREAT RECEPTION all across the southeast. No other phone has compared to the Verizon coverage.

Word of warning don't lose your phone and then not pay them to renew for 2 weeks till you found your phone because they will have already have given your number to somebody else. They do that quickly!!! Learned that the hard way !!

That's kind of crazy because they are a re-seller and their service is on running on the network owned by the ATT, Verizon, etc. I maintain the fiber and copper circuits that feed the cell towers and I can assure you there is no such thing as a ST tower in any of the areas I serve. As far as I'm aware they are purely a re-seller which means they don't own their own network.

Most likely the problem with reception has more to do with buying one of their cheap phones. If you have the same phone there will be no difference from Verizon to ST or ATT to ST as far as the coverage and strength of signal goes.

somebody check my math here.

STRAIGHT TALK PLAN

family of 3 with 3 smart phones.

a phone will normally last me about a year and a half.

smart phone $600 each x 3 =$1,800

per phone per month $50 x 3 = $150

18 months @ $150 per month = $2,700

3 phones for 18 months = $1,800 + $2,700 = $4,500

---------------------------------------------------
VERIZON CONTRACT

I currently pay $230 per month for 3 smart phones and 1 dumb phone. $230 x 18 months = $4,140 + phone cost.

yesterday I got a new I-phone 6 and bought my mom a new I-phone 6+. we each got a new case and I got a lightining charger. my total out of pocket was $94.

how is straight talk cheaper? what am I missing?

I decided a long time I didn't NEED a pocket computer, I just needed a talk and text system. I use the same old flip phone I've had for years, I went to Page Plus and bought $80 of pre-paid minutes. Over the past two years I have averaged about $13.00 per month of cost for phone and text with Verizon tower service. Happy, happy, happy.

sometimes I wish I could go back to that and put $200 a month back in my pocket. between craigslist, ebay, and owning my own business, my pocket computer more than pays for itself. oh yeah, every now and then I get on a couple internet forums.