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It’s no secret by now that Straight Talk begins throttling customers’ unlimited data once they reach a certain point. The cap used to be a hard 2.5GB until they increased it by 500MB a couple of years ago. Now it’s possible to get even more.
A new promotion for folks who bring their own phone to the company nets them 5GB of 4G LTE data, after which you’ll be slowed down to the less exciting world of 2G/3G. The change goes into effect for all their unlimited plans, though the baseline $30 “All You Need” plan (where you only get 100MB of data period) is obviously left out.
Straight Talk’s website bills this as a “special offer,” so we’re not sure how long it will last or if it’s a permanent promotion. For what it’s worth, the change applies to both new and existing customers so if you’re already going on one of the company’s unlimited plans and you’re using a device you bought independently from Straight Talk you should automatically reap the benefits. We’ll be looking to find out more about the change in the moments to come.
It’s showing up here. 5GB of high speed is very nice for $45 a month. I’m absolutely loving my decision a year and a half ago to leave Verizon.
Derek is that for existing customers like us?
Yes it is! The update appear on my wife’s account and my account last night. I didn’t have to do anything. Also, ST texted me about 2 hours ago advertising the update. You probably got one too. Congrats!
Have you also tried Cricket? Wondering what the comparison is in terms of availability and speed.
Cricket is owned directly by At&t so you get the same coverage. Its a great deal if you don’t mind the LTE being capped at 8mbps.
Yeah the speed may be capped but you can still stream YouTube at 720 (maybe higher I don’t know) without any issues. I have had no problems with Cricket and I pay half what I was with Verizon with more services.
I believe you can stream a 1080p video with at least 5Mbps. No congestion.
What is the supposed to be speed of LTE? And does it mean, I would not be getting same speed as I am getting now with post paid ATT?
Correct! You definitely wouldn’t get the same speed as At&t. The LTE is capped at 8mbps on Criket. I just ran a speedtest on my G3 on Straight Talk and got 27mbps. Now with the 5gb this plan is totally worth it for $46 after the auto pay discount.
Cricket does not offer roaming, unlike Straight Talk, so that may redefine “…a great deal…” to some. I assume Straight Talk is upping their data to 5GB to match Cricket’s offering. Hope it lasts and a good move on Straight Talk. I have used Straight Talk for years, and saved tons of money. Kill the contracts!
Cricket claimed to have better coverage than Tmo AND Sprint. I clicked the ad and gave Phandroid their cents. =.3
Cricket throttles your download speed and is more expensive.
“data cap for unlimited plans” isn’t this a contradiction in terms. It is amazing to me they can sell unlimited plans and then.. cap them. They need laws against this.
And in this case, it is super funny to me they make you feel good & excited about capping your unlimited data by acting like they are hooking you up by throwing you some more data to have despite the fact you have.. and unlimited data plan. WTF?
Cap the speeds, not the data.
Though I’m not saying that it’s right to slow someone to an unusable speed.
I think a good example is go to the amusement park and you can ride roller coasters all day. Once you get there you’re told you can only ride the kiddy rides. This doesn’t stop you from riding roller coasters, but you’ve come to some type of… cap that slows you down.
I believe this is why they can get away with it. That and the speeds are as slow as Dial-up. And you can’t say you cannot use the internet since we’ve once used Dial-Up and people didn’t complain then.
I think these carriers has it all planned out. LoL!!
If they wanted to make it usable just slow after throttle, they would have set something like 256kbps as the throttle speed like some carriers do. The fact that they set it to the unusable 64kbps tells me they want to force you to renew the plan, therefore by reality or intention a competent court should find it actually a cap, not a throttle.
Of course they have it planned out.
It is unlimited. You’re not charged an overage or cut off. No different than Tmobile
Tell that to my straight talk phone that got its data cut for a month and a half after watching a single 5min LQ youtube video.
Sounds like a comparable amount of data from Cricket. Is Straight Talk full speed or limited to 8mbps like Cricket does??
full speed, in my area I get ~25mbps on LTE
Straight Talk full speed but it definitely isn’t the same as ATT even though my phone says att. Sometimes can’t even get a signal to make a call, lots of problems with texts, horrendous customer service, but at times can get 30 mbps. Very inconsistent.. But their Phillipines and Mexico and India reps will drive you crazy
Also, is Straight Talk AT&T towers like Cricket??
You have a choice between TMO or ATT and there’s even the possibility to bring a CDMA phone but I don’t know what network (Sprint?) they’re leasing from to provide that service. You have to select the network when you join by deciding on the sim you want, you could get both and try one your first month and the other the next if you don’t know which network is best in your area.
Straight talk LTE only available on ATT unless they just changed that m. The Tmobile SIM was always hspa only
LTE has been availble on T-Mobile sims through straight talk since ~2014, not sure of the specifics since AT&T seems to be best for my Sister and I. This can be confirmed through the official site however I didn’t find specifics about supported frequencies even T-Mobile aren’t very clear when it comes to LTE on what band in different locations.
You can use lte verizon phones as well. The straight talk phones in my area use verizons network
In my state they use verizon towers.
This will be nice if I ever need it, but even now on Straight Talk I use less than 2GB each month. The times that I use the most data I’m also on wifi. As much as I like Straight Talk I sure hope I get an invite for Project Fi soon.
I was in the same boat as you until I traveled last month and had no WIFI where I stayed, they throttle you to an insanely slow speed ~128-256kbps after your 3GB allowance and it’s near unusable. I bought another month of service early because there’s no way to ‘add’ data to a normal phone plan.
For people complaining about Caps and mis-advertising…its NOT.
I dont like it either, but they arent misrepresenting anything.
Its unlimited DATA. Not unlimited SPEED they are selling. Yes..after 5gigs, the data flow is super slow..but you still get UNLIMITED amount of it…despite the slow speed. Theres not overage costs.
No carrier will ever do both anymore. You have to pick. Unlimited Speed but not data (like normal tiered plans that charge when you go over a certain amount..but you can download at full speed the whole time)…or unlimited data (but you get speed restrictions).
No where in any ad..promise..anything do they say Unlimited speed. Just unlimited data.
Again..i hate that…but from a legal perspective..they arent doing anything wrong.
While I see your point, a court found that they were misleading/misrepresenting their plan in the past https://www.prepaidphonerefund.com/ All they had to do was mention somewhere in fine print that they throttled at 2.5GB but they neglected to do so. At least that’s my understanding of the situation. I still think StraightTalk is a great deal and I plan to stay with them for the foreseeable future.
Since the cap wasn’t really explained, people got upset. The speeds become so slow that, to some, it seemed as if their data turned off.
But yea, with them actively putting there’s a cap, there shouldn’t be any more issues.
64kbps is off. All modern applications you can use on a phone will time out. You don’t think they set that throttle rate on purpose?
Plus it’s a lie to say that’s 2G/3G speed, whatever it is. EDGE, which was 2G (now retroactively called ‘3G’), was 256kbps to nearly 500kbps download. You could get that on feature phones in the mid 2000’s. GPRS, which was the actual first generation packet radio standard in the 1990’s, already allowed 64kbps to 128kbps. What they now retroactively call 1G isn’t even a digital cellular network (therefore no data), but the voice-only networks of the 1980’s. They can call 64kbps whatever G they want, but the reality is it’s speeds from 25 years ago. You tell me if that’s data or not.
Agreed, when I was recently throttled it was near useless. I thought it would be good enough to get google maps search results and post a status update on social media but you’re lucky if those things ‘go through’. I gave up and renewed my service early. Which took hours to load pages on straighttalk.com to see if I could ‘add’ high speed data and then finally logging in and purchasing a new month early. If this happens to you you’re far better off just calling them.
My account now reflects this change:
“Service Plan Info: 1-Month Unl Talk and Text plus 3GB high-speed Data for Straight Talk branded phones or 5GB for BYOP phones”
As I am currently using a Z3 Compact so I could assume I’m getting the 5GB plan but I am travelling for the next week and the last week of my service plan so I will definitely be putting this to the test
What’s so hard about clearly saying that you get 2,3,5 GB at full speed? Say exactly what you offer and let people decide.
They do say exactly that. It’s all over their website.
Did they change the TOS or do they still shut off your account for streaming video (including YouTube?) It seems kind of pointless to offer that much data if you can’t use it.
I stream Google Play Music and YouTube. No issues.
That’s good. But it’s still in their TOS. No video streaming. I’ll pass.
That ended years ago
Last time I looked (and it was months ago, not years), it was still in their TOS. I’d hope that with Net Neutrality coming, they would change it.
It’s still there. Some people just get lucky I guess.
I had my Data cut for a month and a half a while ago and said screw this I am going back to Boost Mobile where I at least had the ablility to use data.
Just beware if you ever have an issue their customer service is horrific and makes Comcast look stellar. You’ll never get someone who understands English and youre likely to have MMS issues. Your coverage will be erratic. You might hit 20g30 mbps or you might lot even be able to make a call
This. I’m leaving them and joining my wife’s AT&T account next month. We’re both supposedly using AT&T towers but her service is consistently better and faster than mine. And just forget about calling them for anything.
What’s the purpose of having 5GB of data when you won’t even come close to using it because of all the prohibition in Straight Talk’s TOS? Don’t get me wrong. I have Straight Talk and it’s pretty good value for the money, but I rarely even hit 750MB in a month, much less, 2.5GB, 3GB, and certainly not 5GB. Just seems like overkill to me.
Not sure what you mean. It’s easy to hit that if you stream a lot of video and music.
Yes, but then you would be non-compliant with their TOS as streaming video and/or music is not allowed. So basically they’re offering 5GB of data as a sales pitch, but then tell you you’re not allowed to use services that would actually use that much data.
I don’t remember it saying that but I haven’t read it in a while. They’ve never given me problems about it. But I’m leaving them anyways the service is second rate.