# T-Mobile vs. Straight Talk (What even is Straight Talk?)



## theowb4 (Jun 11, 2011)

I'm definitely getting the Nexus 4, planning on staying up til midnight on Monday just to order it. The only question now is of carrier, and I'm between T-Mo and Straight Talk due to price. As T-Mo is a full carrier, part of the "big four", and has a $30 unlimited everything-but-phone plan, I'm leaning towards that. The coverage is good enough in my area, and I can always switch if it's not. The other option for me is Straight Talk, with a $45 "unlimited" plan. I don't know the bounds of their unlimited-ness, how the service is, which carrier it's through, or really anything about how the service works. What do you think? Can anybody clarify more on the difference between the two carriers?

More information about my own specific setup:
Location - Kingston/Plymouth MA
Phone - Nexus 4 16gb
Usage - I don't do too much calling, and I'm planning on doing everything through Google Voice with GrooVe VOIP. I do a ton of texting, and if the Google Voice app isn't as laggy on the N4 as it is on my GNex, I'll be switching.
Current Phone and Service - Verizon GNex 32gb, my verizon coverage is TERRIBLE in this area, I don't even have enough service to squeeze out a text at certain friend's houses.

If you have any more questions, of course, let me know! Thank you all again for the help!


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## Thing 342 (Jul 1, 2012)

Never used Straight Talk, but their data policy is a mystery. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to when they throttle your data, for some it's 100mb per day, others 2GB, and for others there is no limit. You can use either an AT&T or TMobile compatible SIM.


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## WorldPeaceAndStuff (May 13, 2012)

Straight talk $30 plan gets you 100mb then throttle. The $45 plan gets you 2gb then throttle. For smartphones the $45 plan is needed from straight talk. Straight talk coverage is CDMA and gsm so they are using more than one carrier. My coverage on straight talk is similar and sometimes better than my galaxy nexus on Verizon.

T-Mobile should have less coverage than straight talk.


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## vanhoud (Jan 7, 2012)

Tmobile is the way to go

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## Adam80460 (Jun 7, 2011)

What about Simple Mobile? How good is their coverage?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


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## bhayes444 (May 14, 2012)

Adam80460 said:


> What about Simple Mobile? How good is their coverage?
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


Simple mobile is a T-Mobile MVNO, so their coverage is the same as T-Mobile. I've heard a lot of complaints about their overall data speeds though (especially 3G being at 2G speeds). I'm on T-Mobile in my area and it's pretty good. Whether Simple Mobile's coverage is any good in your area or not you should be able to just look on T-Mobile's coverage map to check your area.


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## goldentuna (Feb 3, 2012)

WorldPeaceAndStuff said:


> Straight talk $30 plan gets you 100mb then throttle. The $45 plan gets you 2gb then throttle. For smartphones the $45 plan is needed from straight talk. Straight talk coverage is CDMA and gsm so they are using more than one carrier. My coverage on straight talk is similar and sometimes better than my galaxy nexus on Verizon.
> 
> T-Mobile should have less coverage than straight talk.


So this confuses me... are you Using a Verizon GNex on Straight Talk - or the GSM GNex?

From what I've seen on there site and reviews, etc ... they are only GSM - using both ATT&T and T-Mobile systems.

I just bought a Nexus4 to jump to a pre-paid plane MVNO or T-Mobile pre-paid. Even with the EFT it would save me over $100/month.

But, it would be interesting if I could use my Verizon GNex with Straight Talk too.


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## WorldPeaceAndStuff (May 13, 2012)

I use my galaxy nexus on Verizon and I use a different phone on straight talk to try gsm.


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## Don Serrot (Feb 11, 2012)

Um... Straight Talk has absolutely no CDMA. It's through AT&T or T-Mobile (your choice) and both of those are GSM. They even have a tongue in cheek option on their site about Verizon. When selecting what sim card you want if you click the CDMA option they say they don't do that.

Where Where I live T-Mobile doesn't exist, it's only Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint (so long as you don't mind having almost no signal). For me the best option is Straight Talk. I'm hoping to move at some point in the future, and where I'm looking T-Mobile should exist and I'd probably switch then. Basically, if you can get T-Mobile they'll be the best. If you can't but you can get AT&T you'd want Straight Talk.


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## mbh87 (Jun 14, 2011)

Don Serrot said:


> Um... Straight Talk has absolutely no CDMA.


That's not true. The bring your own device option is only ran off GSM though.


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## Don Serrot (Feb 11, 2012)

The questions in this topic are about using the Nexus 4 though. If someone is going to mention it using CDMA they may want to mention that it's not for the bring your own phone part. Leaving that little tidbit out could lead to confusion, riots in the streets, cat's and dogs living together, MASS HYSTERIA!


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## nibrwr (Jan 15, 2012)

I got my Nexus 4 last night and activated a new Straight Talk account too. I ported my number from Sprint, and the activation was simple.

Setting up an APN took some trial and error, but I have data + MMS.

T-Mobile isn't an option for me at the time, but if it ever is I like to know that I can simply finish my month with ST and switch. Prepaid is so much nicer.


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## WhataSpaz (Feb 20, 2012)

nibrwr said:


> I got my Nexus 4 last night and activated a new Straight Talk account too. I ported my number from Sprint, and the activation was simple.
> 
> Setting up an APN took some trial and error, but I have data + MMS.
> 
> T-Mobile isn't an option for me at the time, but if it ever is I like to know that I can simply finish my month with ST and switch. Prepaid is so much nicer.


How's your service, same? I'm on a shared data plan with my boyfriend with AT&T and it's still $160 or more each month between the two of us (mind you, that's only 6GB of data too). Aside from losing LTE, I wouldn't mind paying $45 a month at all

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III using Tapatalk 2


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## nibrwr (Jan 15, 2012)

Service is great, but I haven't left the house since last night. Like I said, I switched from Sprint... But initial speedtests from home show 5Mbps/.9Mbps down/up.

Sprint gave me 1/.3 Mbps down/up on a perfect day.

On a side note, upon provisioning my phone with ST, I received a text welcoming me to my new AT&T service, FWIW


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## pedxing (Jan 15, 2012)

Similar experience here. Activated my straight talk att Sim today and so far so good. Speed is actually slightly faster than Verizon for me at home... I'm not expecting the same in the city but hoping for the best.

I'm using my Google voice number and forwarding to the straight talk number. All outgoing calls are via Google voice. Voice mail is the only weird point... the call forward works but if I reject a call using the option on the screen then it forwards the call right back to me and starts ringing again. It'll loop like that until I either let it ring through or silence it with the power button.

I've searched on this and found a bunch of people with the same issue but no fix.

By the way the call forward number provided in Google voice did not work. It said dial *004*1(gv number)#.... What worked was *004*1(####)*11# which I got from a forum.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2


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## mrsethprice (Mar 17, 2012)

nibrwr said:


> I got my Nexus 4 last night and activated a new Straight Talk account too. I ported my number from Sprint, and the activation was simple.
> 
> Setting up an APN took some trial and error, but I have data + MMS.
> 
> T-Mobile isn't an option for me at the time, but if it ever is I like to know that I can simply finish my month with ST and switch. Prepaid is so much nicer.


How has this been working out? still well...I'm getting this phone soon and I am tired of contracts. I've read a bunch of horror stories about data caps...


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## nibrwr (Jan 15, 2012)

mrsethprice said:


> How has this been working out? still well...I'm getting this phone soon and I am tired of contracts. I've read a bunch of horror stories about data caps...


I'm pleased with it overall. I haven't had any problems with data usage, but I use WiFi more anyway.

My only complaint: MMS is inconsistent, enough to annoy. Not a deal breaker at all, but I have to send pics of kids to grandparents at times, and having to adjust the proxy or delete & resend gets old quickly.

Tl;dr: ST is great, and much cheaper than the Sprint plan I had


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## Gedster31 (Sep 21, 2011)

Well coming from a Sprint network, anything would be better. I gave up my Sprint Sero account in May 2012 and have been poking around the prepaid world. Straight Talk/Net10 (same company) are ok but customer service is bad, better off seeking help from their forums and facebook pages. I know Net10 forums have employees on them during working hours, post a service problem and usually within 30 mins you get request for a PM from them and they sort out issues. Works well for getting unthrottled, I spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get unthrottled and failed. In the forums, pm'd an employee my imei and I was unthrottled in 5 minutes.

I currently have a smartphone on ATT's GoPhone $50 dumb phone plan. Works great, no worries about throttling and so far customer service has been the best that I have had from any Cell company. The list of smartphones that work on it are small and ATT can wise up and pull the plug on the data on it any time. I did pop my gophone sim in a Nexus4, data and phone calls worked fine but I only tried it for a day.

I bought the Nexus4 because I wanted to try the TMobile $30 plan. So far I am getting the same speeds as my gophone plan (3-7 Mbps) but the TMobile goes through times where it is only 1Mbps and some times latency will shoot up to over 1 second but I will be getting 7Mbps. Something is weird about their network. I'll play with it for the rest of month and see if I want to keep it or put the nexus on a gophone plan.

Remember, when activating a sim on a prepaid service, when the website asks for the imei try entering all zeros first. Some prepaid companies like to lock sims to phones and all zeros seems to side step this. All zero's worked on ATT GoPhone and TMobile activation.


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## clockcycle (Jan 12, 2012)

All I'm reading here about straight talk is a bunch of hear say... They can not throttle data, they don't have that control. AT&T does the throttling and do it to all their MVNOs.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

clockcycle said:


> All I'm reading here about straight talk is a bunch of hear say... They can not throttle data, they don't have that control. AT&T does the throttling and do it to all their MVNOs.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk


Whether straight talk does the throttling or at&t does the throttling for straight talk, what dies it really matter? You can be throttled either way & you still have to call straight talk to get unthrottled.

Sent from my Nexus 4


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## Pleirosei (Jul 8, 2011)

If you ate in t mobile area you should use solavei, their data plan is well defined, 4 gig of un throttled data and after that 3g.

ALSO Free roaming on att network. All of this for 50 a month. Plus there is potential to eat extra money if you want. From everyone feedback that I have read who use it, it has been really outstanding with good customer service.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2


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## Sandman007 (Sep 6, 2011)

Don Serrot said:


> Um... Straight Talk has absolutely no CDMA.


Wrong.

Straight Talk uses both Verizon and AT&T networks to provide coverage. Depending on the type of phone purchased, Straight Talk users can have access to the same coverage provided by Verizon's own CDMA network or AT&Ts GSM.

SOURCE: http://techtips.salon.com/straight-talk-same-coverage-verizon-20246.html
Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## yarly (Jun 22, 2011)

That article also claims you have to buy a phone through Straight Talk for GSM as well, which is entirely inaccurate.


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

Edit: Wrong thread, moved post concerning Solavai to proper thread.

http://rootzwiki.com...30#entry1077767


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## ambrown (Dec 11, 2012)

What about Net10? Anyone used their service? After some research they seem to get high markings.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk 2


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

ambrown said:


> What about Net10? Anyone used their service? After some research they seem to get high markings.
> 
> Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk 2


Just did a ton of research on prepaid carriers. Straight Talk & Net10 are both owned by TracFone & operate almost the exact same, with the same data caps. The only difference is that Net10 has family plans & you can buy airtime cards from different places. Straight Talk is basically a deal between TracFone & Wal-Mart & is a little cheaper. From everything I've read, it seems like Straight Talk is a hair better than Net10.


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## clockcycle (Jan 12, 2012)

brkshr said:


> Just did a ton of research on prepaid carriers. Straight Talk & Net10 are both owned by TracFone & operate almost the exact same, with the same data caps. The only difference is that Net10 has family plans & you can buy airtime cards from different places. Straight Talk is basically a deal between TracFone & Wal-Mart & is a little cheaper. From everything I've read, it seems like Straight Talk is a hair better than Net10.


You are correct about both being tracfone. One is a special discounted deal with Walmart. But currently only net10 has announced they now have a hard cap on data at 1.5gb when using an at&t byop Sim. This DOES NOT affect straight talk, for the moment.

Note; Even though straight talk does not have a set limit or cap, data is randomly throttled by at&t. And straight talk cannot fix it for you in *most* cases. Data will remain throttled until your next "refill"...

Their T-Mobile byop is not affected by such limits.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

clockcycle said:


> Note; Even though straight talk does not have a set limit or cap, data is randomly throttled by at&t. And straight talk cannot fix it for you in *most* cases. Data will remain throttled until your next "refill"...


Not sure if this was just in my case or what, but when ST throttled me I waited for my refill & remained throttled. I ended up having to call in to get unthrottled.

I did see that Net10 announced the 1.5GB throttle for the AT&T side. I would say that puts ST ahead of Net10 now.


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## scottx (May 15, 2012)

My straight talk here is so slow I can barely browse xda tapatalk right now.

I went and got T-Mobile monthly 4g and it sucks so bad I can't use it. Lots of people are having nexus 4 related issues with T-Mobile m4g. So instead of upgrading from straight talk which I've had for a year+ I have a $65 sim and plan for a month I cant use. Stay away from it.


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## jsauder2 (Nov 3, 2011)

no issues with tmo here...have been able to get speeds up to 28mb/s download and 3.5 up.

Sent from my Nexus 4


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## JASKRU (Jun 8, 2011)

If you give yourself some *time* to set things up with straighttalk or net10 and *a ton of patience* in anticipation of horrendous customer service over the phone, via email and sketchy website forum then they will work out. Oh, and some wifi networks at home and office to offset some of the data consumption. Works for me but *heavy mobile data users* should just stick to the big data plans from the main carriers.

After years of dealing with dumb vzw reps as well as modding my phone and knowing the steps for service ahead of time I was surprised at how super crappy cs *didn't really matter as long as I could get a good att mvno plan up and running with auto renew at half the price*.


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## clockcycle (Jan 12, 2012)

Adam80460 said:


> What about Simple Mobile? How good is their coverage?
> 
> Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2


Simple mobile is a sister to tracfone/telcel/net10/straight talk.

You get T-Mobile mvno access. I use st/Tmobile byop sim. I've switched several gsm phones and all worked great/fast, no data cap/throttling issues as like when using the st/at&t byop sim, but at&t still has better building/elevator penetration. I use, not abuse, everything within their limits. YMMV

Posted using an ATRIX™ ]|[


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## adam (Jul 11, 2011)

i'm using straight talk with service from at&t. i'm running AOKP MR1. i've tried multiple combinations of APN's floating around the forum and every single one has eventually prompted me with the notification that says something to the effect of "error downloading message, touch to retry". of course, when i touch the notification it just takes me to the screen to create a new message, not knowing who sent the message to begin with. is there a fool proof APN at this point that i've missed? is it somehow related to AOKP? any help would be appreciated.


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

adam said:


> i'm using straight talk with service from at&t. i'm running AOKP MR1. i've tried multiple combinations of APN's floating around the forum and every single one has eventually prompted me with the notification that says something to the effect of "error downloading message, touch to retry". of course, when i touch the notification it just takes me to the screen to create a new message, not knowing who sent the message to begin with. is there a fool proof APN at this point that i've missed? is it somehow related to AOKP? any help would be appreciated.


I've never had any problems with the APN setup that Straight Talk says to use. Is there a reason you don't use that one?

Sent from my Nexus 4


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## adam (Jul 11, 2011)

i'm pretty sure that was the first one i tried. then i got the error and started reading about how people had problems with MMS on straight talk and down the rabbit hole of APNs i went.


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## brkshr (Jun 16, 2011)

adam said:


> i'm pretty sure that was the first one i tried. then i got the error and started reading about how people had problems with MMS on straight talk and down the rabbit hole of APNs i went.


Hmm.

Well, I'm pretty sure this is what CyanogenMod comes with for StraightTalk AT&T APN settings. IDK, if you've tried these, but these have also worked fine for me in the past.

Name: StraightTalk ATT
APN: att.mvno
Proxy: Not set
Port: Not set
Username: Not set
Password: Not set
Server: Not set
MMSC: http://mmsc.cingular.com
MMSC proxy: 66.209.11.33
MMS port: 80
MCC: 310
MNC: 410
Authentication Type: Not set
APN type: default,supl,mms
APN protocol: IPv4
APN enable/disable: APN enabled (tick mark checked but grayed out anyways)
Bearer: Unspecified


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## DrPepperLives (Aug 2, 2011)

For what its worth, after I used about 5gb on T-Mobile straight talk, my data got completely shut off. I was told the speed was 'reduced' but I had none whatsoever. Also, I knew the customer service was bad but could not fathom the ridiculousness until I experienced it first hand. Tread lightly y'all.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using RootzWiki


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## Don Serrot (Feb 11, 2012)

I've been using my Nexus 4 on AT&T Straight Talk for a few months now and things are going pretty good for me. I used the data usage settings to set some on phone caps for myself just to be safe but I've never even come close to activating them. When I heard about AT&T putting a 1.5GB data cap (that Straight Talk denies having) I figured better safe than sorry. I get a warning at 1GB that I've never seen, and I have it stop at 1.4GB that again has yet to be seen. I'm on Wi-Fi most of the time and just use light web browsing, Twitter, and Play Music while walking to work. As long as you aren't going to be watching hours of YouTube videos or Netflix or anything like that over data it should be good.

Also a small note, Hangouts video chat works the same way on AT&T Straight Talk data as it does on AT&T normal data, it doesn't. We just gotta wait for Google to work that one out though. Just figured I'd add that.


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## JASKRU (Jun 8, 2011)

Don Serrot said:


> I've been using my Nexus 4 on AT&T Straight Talk for a few months now and things are going pretty good for me. I used the data usage settings to set some on phone caps for myself just to be safe but I've never even come close to activating them. When I heard about AT&T putting a 1.5GB data cap (that Straight Talk denies having) I figured better safe than sorry. I get a warning at 1GB that I've never seen, and I have it stop at 1.4GB that again has yet to be seen. I'm on Wi-Fi most of the time and just use light web browsing, Twitter, and Play Music while walking to work. As long as you aren't going to be watching hours of YouTube videos or Netflix or anything like that over data it should be good.
> 
> Also a small note, Hangouts video chat works the same way on AT&T Straight Talk data as it does on AT&T normal data, it doesn't. We just gotta wait for Google to work that one out though. Just figured I'd add that.


+1 for your data settings. I also did the same but I am on wifi at work and home a lot so I never see any warnings pop up.

ATT hangouts fix-

https://plus.google....sts/3AptWBWZqvb
per Mark Dobson:

"for those of you on att (and rooted) to get the "new" video hangouts on 3/4g...here it is.

1.Get SQLight editor from the market
2. Get Root Explorer from the market.
3. use Root Explorer to browse to /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db and click on it
4. then click on "main"
5. Scroll down to gtalk_vc_wifi_only - highlight and hold
6. Press "Edit Record" and change the "value" to false instead of true
7. Reboot"


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## jrbooth3 (Jul 29, 2011)

I tried net10 in minneapolis mn market using att sim. I had very sporatic data connections where My friends att iphone was fine. I was getting capped at 100mb a day. I got my sim about a week after the unlocking ban took effect when att said they werent going to have any non att phones on their network. I wasnt fond of the experience. that was about 6 weeks before tmobile went no contract. My work couldnt send me alerts on net10 or staighttalk so that was a deal breaker too. the sketchy data was the worst part. never did get MMS working. their support site is horrible. net10 needs to approve questions on their support forum and even common questions like APN for MMS are answered with " let's take this off line" so I never did figure it out. I had ported my wifes number to them. that was a huge mistake. I paid an extra month of service after she was on t-mobile while I fought to get it ported to t-mobile. If they issue the number forget about it. the numbers arent their numbers to give. I have read different experiences in different parts of the country are great. some areas are worse. APN settings seem to be different depending on where you are as to what works. t-mobile my phone is $70 unlimited no throttling my wife has the 500 mb for $30 and son has 500 mb for $10 all unlimited talk so it is even a little cheaper.. Oh I figured out my wifes phone on net10 never had data working. She never said anything and always hopped on wifi without thinking about it.


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