Straight Talk adding GSM service?
Straight Talk‘s bragging points is that it operates on Verizon’s CDMA network. Even though this does not include the roaming agreements that Verizon’s postpaid customers enjoy, it is, with last year’s absorption of the Alltel network, a very large primary network. The only problem is that some of the markets it doesn’t hit are covered by GSM networks. According to evidence produced by Howard Forums user The Sweeper, it looks like Straight Talk could expand its offering to GSM services. The photo comes from a promo at a Wal-Mart store, which advertises the Samsung T401G. That G on the end is for GSM. You can see on Straight Talk’s website that they have phones ending with C, for CDMA, but none with GSM. So it appears that this was caught a bit early. In fact, if you look at comment No. 3 on this thread, you can see that someone found something similar earlier in the week. Further comments show that this has been going on since as early as March. So what’s going on? America Movil, Straight Talk’s parent company, already has an unlimited plan on a GSM network, Net10 Unlimited. The service, introduced in the summer of 2008, was discontinued at the end of last year and reintroduced just a few weeks later. Could it be headed back for the graveyard? There are no indications yet, but if Straight Talk really is starting to get more into the GSM game, it doesn’t make much sense for Movil to continue with both brands. This is something we’ll certainly stay on top of. Straight Talk is the most talked-about prepaid service on the market right now, and a foray into GSM would represent a pretty significant move. ]]>
straigh talk is an atrocious product with incompetent customer service. my phone shuts off and assigns new numbers, i’ve spent at least 20 hours with csr’s at wal mart as they talk to clueless straight talk csr’s to either get my phone back up and running get my old # back, straigten out my auto-refill snafu. i’ve had 3 numbers in 7 weeks. my daughter 2, my wifes phone has shut down twice, mine 6 times, my daughters twice. i have no words to describe how awful this product is. the worst product i have ever purchased in my entire life-bar none, not close. an absolute (unfunny) joke.
hey joe m, are you using the new gsm (one with a sim card) or the cdmc (no sim card)? I just bought the T401G (sim card) and a relative has the old slider phone, whose model number i don’t recall (no sim card). it would be cool if you could take the sim card and put it in a phone from AT&T (mabye, the iphone, perhaps?) and get it to work with straight talk. that would be extremly amazing.
I to am wondering about using the straight talk SIM and placing it into a AT&T phone? This would be good!
I love StraightTalk. I have a LG290C and I have NEVER had a problem. Love it! Unlimited everything for $45 dollars a month. Beat that!
can i just get the sim card? i have an unlocked sim card.. dont want to spend on another cell phone
I’ve had Straight Talk service in the Cincinnati area for almost 7 months now, with NO service problems WHAT-SO-EVER! After being locked into 2/yr contracts with Verizon (for a total of 8 years) – I was paying more per month with Verizon for half the services/features of Straight Talk! God help you if you’re a Verizon customer and go over your monthly contract/mins, you’ll pay through the nose and give up your first and last born! I’ve been VERY happy with my Straight Talk phone/service…
just to agree wth graig, i was robbed by verizon. they are extremely too damn expensive for less service. i was an alltel customer and verizon bought them out. so i had some charges that i had to travel serveral times to a verizon store so that their customer service in store could figure out what talking to verizon customer service over the phone couldnt. the store found the problem and still only refunded half my money back, not to mention i had to travel out my way to this damn store and we all know what gas prices are like.
I have only been with ST a couple of weeks. But so far, I absolutely love them! When I cancelled my Verizon, they tried to tell me all sorts of reasons why I shouldn’t. It’s great knowing that no matter what I do on my phone, internet or text, there are no surprises at the end of the month. $45. Period. Done.
i’ve had ST for 3 weeks now. i have the samsung r451c. reason being is the c is CDMA which runs on verizon’s network.i realize its been only 3 weeks but i love it. everything worked fine. i’ve never had to call customer service so i cant comment on their CSrv is. did everything online.coverage is great.phone has a mp3 player that works great…no problems at all.was with verizon for 9yrs & i’ve probably paid them thousands upon thousands of dollars.ST is great. hopefully it stays around
What is gsm exactly? that’s all i wanna know. details please
used straight talk nokia 6790 gsm phone once service was on took sim card out put into unlocked att 8520 curv no problems
Am I reading right that you used the straight talk sim card in an unlocked att phone? That sounds awesome. My family has Att now, and we pay so much. Thought Straight talk seemed reasonable, but the phones are not that great. If we could use our existing phones, that would be wonderful.
I tried to use a straight talk sim card in my unlocked pantech Impact 7000 & it wouldn’t work. I love straight talks service it picks up everywhere I go. However the customer service sucks.. Hardly anyone you get speaks english that you can understand.There is so much you can’t do with there phones. It will say files not excepted,also you can’t view your call history on line & if your time runs out so does your number I have to say it is a little easier to get the number back then before. And if you pay your bill for example on the 10th & not due till the 20th you lose those 10days so you have to wait till the last minute are you screw yourself out of time. But I have to say seems like they are trying to fix some of these issues. I have referred alot of people to there service which they love it’s the phones & what you cannot do because of them that is the problem.
Bonnie, I used a refill card last month and online you can use the card for when your month ends so you dont lose any time. Are you sure you’d lose time if you refilled early? Because I didnt last month when I did it online.
@Bonnie-why don’t you take advantage of their convenient Auto-Refill feature? No cost involved to do that!!
Bonnie: You do not loss the days you have left over if you renew early. If you renew 10 days early those 10 days fold over just like your minutes do, so instead of 90 new days you’ll have 100 days until renewal.
By the way, on the FAQ, on the 15th question down it says
What happens when I refill my Straight Talk Account?
Every refill resets your phone?s balance by the amount of the Service Plan. When you refill your phone with an Unlimited Plan, you will receive unlimited talk, text, and/or multimedia messages and Mobile Web Access on data-enabled phones for a 30, 90, 180 days or 1 year service period. When you refill with an All You Need Plan, you will receive 1000 Minutes, 1000 messages, plus 30MB of data for data-enabled phones for a 30 day service period. There is no carryover of unused service.
In reply to Skylar’s comment to Bonnie I probably misspoke. I was refering to Tracfone and forgot that this was about Straight Talk, Duh! I use Tracfone and unused serivce time does fold over whereas with Straight Talk you’re out of luck if you add units early.
@Bonnie Straight Talk’s auto-refill option allows you to stack refills for when you run low in the month-and for unlimited it will automatically reload them at month end if you have one waiting-in my opinion was one of the best things they could have introduced, cause I had that problem before. As far as the phones go, yes they are older options, but their smartphones pretty much allow you to do what other phones allow. You’ll just be paying quite a bit more for your phone than if you just went for a standard feature phone.
I would like to purchase the Nokia 6790 (has a sim card) this runs on straight talk through at&t. does anyone know if i can take the sim card out and put it into an unlocked at&t phone, such as the HTC inspire?? thankks
I purchased a 6790 and have successfully used the SIM in my shine and in a tilt. the last digits of the top line are SIMC4. Ive heard that says who the carrier is. some sprint some att
Bonnie, You have to have an unlocked straight talk sim card and it will work in your att phone. You can find one on ebay, or buy the nokia smartphone it comes with.
I’ve had a great experience with ST , and am hoping that the plan costs even go lower( because they can ) . The big 3 have been ripping off everybody for years . Even my experience with their C Srv was positive as it was done via e-mail so I didnt have the problems with a live person many have complained about .