Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

[waterinthefuel]

I am on Straight talk, unlimited talk text and web for 45 a month. Most people say that data must be very slow since its half of what people pay for the same plans with AT&T or Sprint.

Well, hold onto your hats. Yes, after 2.5gb of data a month they do throttle you, but so do most all carriers out there, some after less than 2.5gb. But how about 45 a month with full 4G LTE speeds? Here is a screen shot from my phone that I just took after doing a speedtest on my cell network!!

 

[nwcove]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

holy crap.....295Mbps up?? that cant be right? can it????

 

[alldodge]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

Look s great but most the time my issue is connectivity in rural areas. Think those that speed most their time in the big cities your issue would be the way to go

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

Look s great but most the time my issue is connectivity in rural areas. Think those that speed most their time in the big cities your issue would be the way to go

Well, that's just it. I live out in the boonies. I don't live in a large city, or even a small town. I live in what is known as "rural parish". There is nothing out here. My max download available via landline is 6mbps down. But my phone is what you saw.

 

[waterinthefuel]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I do want to remind everyone that the 2.5gb of data is only over the cell network. If you have wifi at your house (like I do, my relatives do, all my friends do, etc) when wifi is available, the phone automatically pulls all data from the wifi connection. So I use my phone all the time, but my data is like almost nothing because it's never on the cell network.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I am looking at the ping number on the left hand side of the screen, 76ms is about normal, there are so many things to take into account when looking at internet speeds.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

But can your phone make a phone call?

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I had read that Straight talk can cut you off for using streaming services like Pandora and Netflix. If true that would be a killer for me. i read their terms of service and there is a statement in there that is vague but could be construed to support that claim. Also, what network is it on? At&T?

 

[tpenfield]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

But can your phone make a phone call?

Probably not, but you can always add Magic Jack

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I was willing to trade off saving over $60/month and not streaming Netflix.

 

[dingbat]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I was willing to trade off saving over $60/month and not streaming Netflix.

i would trade a beer for not streaming netflix or any other video content to my phone for that matter.....lol

 

[rogerwa]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

Agree on Netflix as my eyes are too bad and there is nothing that good on there, but pandora and Spotify is what i use on the boat for tunes and also in my car. Is that banned as well?

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

Agree on Netflix as my eyes are too bad and there is nothing that good on there, but pandora and Spotify is what i use on the boat for tunes and also in my car. Is that banned as well?

I don't believe it is banned. Only problem will be if you use over 150Mb a day or 3Gb a month. What is you average number of hours you use a day? Look at your data usage before an after running Spotify for an hour to see if it would be an issue. I believe its around 0.72Mb/minute so if you wanted to limit yourself to 150Mb, that would be 3 1/2 hours a day.

I am spending $45/month for my StraightTalk(ATT) service vs my $110/month ATT. I just purchased a Google Nexus 5 for $349 and love it. No contract phone and its unlocked to any service. Its really a bad idea to buy a subsidized phone these days. If you can do the StraightTalk and save $60/month, that subsidized phone is costing you $1440 over the 2 year contract.

The numbers that the OP posted are not representative of what you can expect and unless you stream video, which you aren't allowed to do, it's kinda pointless anyway. The upload number is bogus. Again, how often do you upload from your phone?

 

[agallant80]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I was Virgin then I went AT&T. When my contract is up I am going back to pre-paid. Its 45/55 a month unlimmited vs my $135/month AT&T bill.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

That all sounds pretty expensive. We're at $100 a month with T-Mobile for 5 phones with unlimited talk/text and data with the possibility for throttling after 500MB (or you can up that to 2.5GB for another $10 a line)

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I would switch to T-Mobile if they had decent coverage. Even in Los Angeles the coverage is very spotty.

If you go to their map, you would think it would be great. Can't even get one bar in my house.

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I would switch to T-Mobile if they had decent coverage. Even in Los Angeles the coverage is very spotty.

If you go to their map, you would think it would be great. Can't even get one bar in my house.

Yup, depends on where you live. Around here - no problems, but they are one of the big carriers in this market.

 

[southkogs]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I've been running two smart phones (bought older 3G iPhones) on StraightTalk for about a year. $90/mo. Unlimited talk, text & data. Since I'm running a GSM phone, I surf the AT&T network and have had very few coverage issues (compared to my old Verizon coverage) both in the city, country, out on the Gulf or about 2,500 in a Cessna

For the two phones we run, it's just about a 40% savings.

I don't think I'm getting that kinda' speed using the 3G stuff, but I haven't noticed any coverage or data issues...

… and I use a Magic Jack at home

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

I don't think I'm getting that kinda' speed using the 3G stuff, but I haven't noticed any coverage or data issues...

Straight Talk doesn't have access to ATT's so called 4G network anyway so you aren't missing anything even with a newer phone.

 

[tazrig]

Re: Forget everything you heard about prepaid cell phone service!!

Glad I found this thread and please forgive the ignorance... but I've never been able to get a straight answer on "straight talk".

I understand that you buy the phone and there are no monthly contacts to deal with, got that part but which carrier are you assigned? Can you pick one carrier over another? Does anyone have a definitive answer to this? For instance in my area of the world Verizon works best. Can I specify them? or do I have to take who they give me and who would that be?