I’m Switching to Straight Talk

UPDATE: Great news for all you Straight Talk users! Since I’ve posted a few articles here on WireValley in regards to my experience with Straight Talk, APN settings, tutorials, screenshots, helping others, etc. I thought it would be a great idea to start a support website for all of us Straight Talk users! Visit http://StraightTalkSupport.com to ask questions, learn tips, tricks, and plenty more.

I’ll be the first to admit that I switch cell phones and cell phone carriers as fast as I change my socks. This can be a somewhat expensive habit. People always ask how I’m able to do this, and really it’s a simple method. Buy the latest and greatest cell phone on the market (currently Samsung Galaxy S3 at the time of this article) and then turn around and sell it in a few months when the next best thing comes out. When you sell your cell phone on eBay or Craigslist you can easily get $350+ for the device, if you keep the phone in good condition. Then, turn around and buy the next cell phone outright at full price (typically $500 – $550).

However, as I am beginning to learn, it’s not really worth it anymore. I’m getting older and wiser where I need to start saving money. Therefore, I am buckling down and leaving my old ways. I’ve done everything else to save money, cut cable TV for the past year and half, take the bus to work, etc. So now it’s time to cut the cell phone bill.

At this time, my current cell phone provider is AT&T. When I cancel my contract next week I will end up owing about $270 in early terminal fees. Why am I cancelling? Well to switch to Straight Talk of course! For $45 a month you can get unlimited talk, text, and data*. Notice I put an asterisk next to the word data. Straight Talk doesn’t really offer unlimited data, but I’ll get to that shortly.

Straight Talk allows you to pick your sim card to work with either AT&T or T-Mobile. Living in the Twin Cities, I decided to go with AT&T because I know they have better network coverage, faster speeds, and my current phone being the Samsung Galaxy S3 is built for the AT&T network.

My current bill with AT&T is right around $80 a month. That gets me pretty much unlimited talk (we hardly talk anyway so our rollover balance has thousands of minutes), unlimited text, and 3GB of data. With Straight Talk I’ll be stepping down on the data a little bit. From what I can gather doing research this past week, most people easily get 2GB of data from Straight Talk. Once you hit the 2.5GB mark, it seems people get phone calls to cut back on their data or be cut off. However, I have been seeing some people get 3GB all the way up to 8GB of data without any calls or notices! I can’t validate these peoples stories, but I imagine it depends on what area of the country they live in and if AT&T receives network congestion on their towers. Still, Straight Talk should have an automates system to detect any user going over 2.5GB so they can receive the call. Why? They’re ruining for the rest of the Straight Talk users. If they keep their data hogging up, AT&T will eventually step up and tell Straight Talk to cough up more money, which means the $45 price will eventually jump to $50 or even $55, which is still savings for most users. I’ve checked my data usage with AT&T since February of 2012 and the most I’ve ever used is 1.8GB. Therefore, I should be fine. I always connect to WiFi when I’m at home and work. If I didn’t do this then I would easily eat up 5GB of data and be booted from Straight Talk, which I’m not willing to risk because I’ve had my phone number for years.

If you buy 3 months of Straight Talk you can get your bill down to $41 a month! I don’t plan on doing this right away, as I want to test Straight Talk for at least 60 days  before giving them 3 months worth of money. However, if I do end up going down this route I will end up saving nearly $40 a month off my cell phone bill. In 3 months that will be $120 in savings. Therefore, with my cancellation fee being $270, I will turn around and start saving that money in a little over 7 months. I’d rather do that, then at month 7 start reaping the benefits of Straight Talk.

Once I have used Straight Talk I will write my review and update this article with the link to that post. Are you using Straight Talk or have family and friends that use them? Let me know your experience in the comments!