Straight Talk Cellular Service - BIG TIME SAVINGS!

[MrRogers]

Ok guys so you have seen my previous threads walking you through this , that, and the other thing here and there. I figured it was time I REALLY gave you guys something to get extra sleep over...

I bet if I ask most of the people on the forums, or the general online consensus the answer or replies I would get would be along the lines of I have one of the following carriers for my individual, or family cellular plans:

- Verizon
- Sprint
- T-Mobile
- AT&T
- Boost Mobile
- Net10

And the least you can do that will better your knowledge of these carriers and the scams they pull you in to, is to take a look at their websites, see what they are offering over the competition, and if it is a hands down better deal, then why not consider taking it?!

etc, possibly some other carrier that promises you low monthly pricing etc, blah, blah, blah...

You might even fall in to one of the two cellular providers which I am going to try and ween you guys on to for the sake of saving money and at the same time receiving the SAME LTE/4G speeds that you and possibly your families are use to! And those that are already using one of these carriers knows just how awesome they are and how much money you WILL save yearly, and able to NEVER lose reception wherever you go! At least I don't


Ok, So lets talk about the main carriers, they have flyers, banners, advertisements, the whole works to sucker your asses in to their services, then you got the guys at the kiosks in the mall telling you he will give you $XXX amount of money to trade your iPhone 5 in when the 6 comes out, what a load of BULLSHIT! Don't listen to a word that comes out of these motherfuckers mouths, all they are doing is shit talking, and the amount they do it, they need a whole fucking 10 pack of Tic-Tacs! Plain and simple, they work based off of commissions, how many credit checks they can run, the type and cost of plan they can put you on, nothing more, nothing less! So now begs the question, is there REALLY a CHEAPER, BETTER or SAME ALTERNATIVE to these money hungry bastards!?

The simple answer is, YES!

For those that are locked in to some sort of 2 year plan, I would say fuck it, ditch the plan, pay the early termination fee and take this course of action, IMMEDIATELY, especially if you plan to save money, NOW!

The first great MVNO a.k.a. (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) I wanna talk about is Straight Talk, Straight Talk uses AT&T & T-Mobiles infrastructure/towers/Network to provided services to their customers. They primarily use tracfone as their subsidiary company to do business but nevertheless, they are known as Straight Talk so we will call them that

Straight Talk is hassle free, contract free! And they offer better coverage & service than any other provider that is out there, hands down! They offer a $45.00/month plan for Unlimited EVERYTHING! No hidden fees, No gimmicks!

This is their website (I would advice you to get your own iPhone, that is gsm):

http://www.straighttalk.com


The sweet thing about them is that you have the convenient option to have them recur payment each month so your services are NEVER interrupted, and to make matters even better, they allow you to pre-pay in 3 month, 6 month, and 1 year increments, 3 month up from and the payment is $150, which comes out to $43/month, if you pay 6 months in advance I believe it's $42, and then finally, if you pre-pay for 1 year of service up front you only end up pay having to pay $41/ a month! And that includes UNLIMITED EVERYTHING!!! With better coverage! They also have Long distance plans as well for those that have loved overs in other countries but the other MVNO that I wanted to talk to you guys about which has a better plan for that is:

Simple Mobile

Simple Mobile offers you deals on UNLIMITED everything, except for DATA, unless you pay premium, which I would never do. But they do offer a type of plan that would make some people salivate, $25/monthly for UNLIMITED TALK + TEXT with NO DATA or 100 GB/monthly data, something like that. But they do offer very unbeatable prices when it comes to long distance calling you gotta admit.

Here is their site:

http://www.simplemobile.com/

I mention these two because I have Straight Talk and I have never lost a call, gone below 3 bars, in a tunnel, and was never unable to surf the web using youtube, etc. T-Mobile throttles their speeds and they still overcharge you, I know to some the idea of pre-pay is a bad idea, but if you own an iPhone even an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 which you can easily get on ebay for cheap you can get service and you won't ave to pay that retarded monthly bill anymore, and keep in mine Straight Talk is endorsed by Wal-Mart, meaning they sell it at their stores so you know it must be really cheap for them to be selling it, and I looked in to the coverage personally, and it is WELL WORTH IT! The $45/monthly plan. No reason to pay for their expensive shit because it's no different really!


If you guys are able to give it a try let me know! And p.s. If you have an AT&T or T-Mobile phone it DOESN'T NEED TO BE UNLOCKED TO USE THE SIM CARDS!! I believe the same applies to the CDMA carriers, but I am not sure you will need to check.






















The APN Info for Straight Talk:

Choose your Settings

My Straight Talk APN is att.mnvo. I used the first group. Try the ones that match your Data APN from the APN profile and the APN from the settings from the Straight Talk web site.

APN: att.mvno
MMS APN: att.mvno
MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMS Proxy: 66.209.11.33:80
MMS Max Message Size: 1048576
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf

APN: wap.tracfone
MMS APN: wap.tracfone
MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMS Proxy: 66.209.11.32:80
MMS Max Message Size: 1048576
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf

APN: wap.tracfone
MMS APN: wap.tracfone
MMSC: http://mms.tracfone.com
MMS proxy: 216.155.165.40:8080
MMS Max Message Size: 1048576
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf

APN tfdata
MMS APN: tfdata
MMSC http://mms-tf.net
MMS Proxy: mms3.tracfone.com:80
MMS Max Message Size: 1048576
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf

APN: tfdata
MMS
APN tfdata
MMSC: http://mms-tf.net
MMS: Proxy mms2.tracfone.com:80
MMS Max Message Size: 1048576
MMS UA Prof URL: http://www.apple.com/mms/uaprof.rdf




One of those will work for you for data and MMS.

[Wolfgang]

All CDMA phones have a so called SPC code which is required for flashing/programming. There are software applications created by hackers to reveal/edit this security pass code.
GSM phones may be also locked or unlocked, depending on the carrier. AT&T used to lock their phones and special unlocking procedure/software was required. Simple replacing the SIM card doesn't do the trick if the phone was locked. Otherwise GSM phones don't need programming like CDMA phones do. All parameters are stored in the SIM card while the CDMA programming require several files to be loaded into the flash memory (Roaming List, NAM files etc). You can't replace these carrier specific files unless you know the SPC number. Over the air programming may be done by the originating carrier only unless the phone was jail-broken and the SPC is all zeroes.
Finally Simplemobile sounds pretty attractive deal. I currently have T-Mobile but the bill is pretty high.

[MrRogers]

All CDMA phones have a so called SPC code which is required for flashing/programming. There are software applications created by hackers to reveal/edit this security pass code.
GSM phones may be also locked or unlocked, depending on the carrier. AT&T used to lock their phones and special unlocking procedure/software was required. Simple replacing the SIM card doesn't do the trick if the phone was locked. Otherwise GSM phones don't need programming like CDMA phones do. All parameters are stored in the SIM card while the CDMA programming require several files to be loaded into the flash memory (Roaming List, NAM files etc). You can't replace these carrier specific files unless you know the SPC number. Over the air programming may be done by the originating carrier only unless the phone was jail-broken and the SPC is all zeroes.
Finally Simplemobile sounds pretty attractive deal. I currently have T-Mobile but the bill is pretty high.

Dude if you are on T-Mobile right now then I know you have a SIM card port, get a Straight talk sim for your phone man and give it a months worth of service a shot and you will see it is better, and at a lower cost than what your paying now bud! And your phone doesn't need to be unlocked to use Straight Talks network, since they operate ON T-Mobiles network already. I know this because I tested it on each of these (that are all sub sequentially AT&T or T-Mobile phones BEFORE I tried the sim card; iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 (unlocked), iPhone 5, and iPhone 5S) - all purchased on ebay, some were even blacklisted but I got brand new iPhones and that's a lil secret of mine

[MrRogers]

I also would like to add if you know of any well worth knowing MVNO's that offer $50< plans for unlimited everything with 4G LTE, please post it here, a friend stopped by yesterday from the forums and was showing me hi sNet10 and he has 4G LTE and it is $40/month for him but I am not sure how because it says $45 on their website, same as Straight Talk, and in some areas my phone shows 4G LTE depending on my location, sometimes it shows 3G, as I said before - depending on where I am. But needless to say I am very happy with my service with Straight Talks Auto-Refill Program, which Net10 also has, and offers a $5 discount when you use that.

I wish there was a way to accurately compare them, because he was also telling me about the differences in Data usage depending on where you are, Straight Talk for me has ALWAYS been great no matter where I go, and both MVNO's use Tracfone so it is REALLY hard to compare them. But it is a DEFINITE to ditch a known carrier for one of these MVNO's based on pricing and service alone. That is just common sense, considering they use AT&T's & T-Mobiles towers anyways.


I WOULD HAVE things to say about how Boost Mobile works but their service coverage SUCKS ASS! They offer the literal best plan and give you incentive to join them because they lower their monthly price by $5 each month after 6 months of on-time payments and it caps out @ $35/monthly for unlimited everything, but they are CDMA, so that idea is out the damn window. That is the obvious reason they offer such a low price point, that and their coverage when talking is shit compared to Straight Talk's. Alot of people say you can only purchase Straight Talk SIMS from their site, or from Wal-Mart, but I got mine off ebay for $0.99 shipped, so I was a happy camper, the only hassle really is setting up your APN to get the data portion working correctly, which won't take you more than 5 minutes to figure out.

[gone]

T-Mo has some good promotions right now. Boost also (or did at one time). Boost's on Sprint's net, and sucked in my neck of the woods; at least on some phones, including Apple's