Thinking of switching to Straight Talk? Consider this

[ProCroation]

So Sunday I changed over from AT&T to Straight Talk on the bring your own phone feature.

I used my Galaxy Note 2 (not a clone) on Jelly Bean 4.1.2 software. I am able to place and receive phone calls as well as access the internet so far. My MMS is functioning to send pictures, however will not receive them. Also, my SMS does not function for sending or receiving text at all.

I followed the instructions on Straight Talk for setting the APN. When I did that I had no internet or sending of MMS. I found on google some other APN settings which made my internet and sending MMS work.

My current settings are as follows.

Name: straight talk
APN: tfdata
Proxy: not set
Port: 80
MMSC: h t t p : / / mms-tf . net (without spaces)
MMS Proxy: mms3 . tracfone . com (without spaces)
MMS Port: 80
APN Type: default,mms,supl

It's only been 72 hours since I switched but I've spent basically that entire time trying different APN's and suggestions I found online at Android Forums, Howard Forums and XDA Developers forums.

I made a Facebook account (since I don't use that crap) and went to the support tab on their facebook. I chatted with a person from tech support, however they were unable to resolve my issue. It was the exact same thing as when I was talking to a tech support member at their 800 number. It was a whole lot of

"send yourself a text and see if you get it"
Didn't work

"okay turn your phone off and back on again"
okay

"try sending yourself a text and see if you get it"
nope didn't work still

"okay trying deleting your text messages, it's probably full"
okay I did

"restart the phone and try to send yourself a message"
didn't work again

"Okay make sure your APN settings are exactly as they are on our website"
yep they are (were at the time, now they are set to what works for me)

"Okay now try to reboot your phone again and send yourself a message"
Wait a minute...you had me LOOK at my APN settings and since they're okay, we are just going to reboot again? Really? Okay but guess what...didn't work

"Go to your message settings and see what your SMSC number is"
I give them the number in my settings

"Okay now try rebooting your phone"
Wait...what? Again you just had me look at it and read it to you then I need to reboot my phone again? DAFUQ?

"Okay we are going to walk you through a factory reset of your phone. You will probably lose any pictures, video or music you had saved on the phone. Let me know when you are ready to go ahead with the process"
Ummmm...CLICK...I hung up...

Except the chat support operator hung up on me when I tried their facebook support. They simply disconnected leaving behind a message saying "to assist you further, we will need to speak to you directly, please call our 800 number blah blah blah". They basically had me do the same thing as the phone operator except they once even had me remove my sim card and put it back in then reboot.

So...I still have no SMS or MMS.

I don't feel like it's going to be an APN setting issue because I tried every APN I could find on google today. They all seem to allow me to do the same things and they all seem to restrict SMS. I find this odd because most people with APN problems, the main complaint seems to just be not being able to send/receive MMS only.

This morning my wife decided to call straight talk. Somehow by the end of her conversation with them (with attitude), they are sending me a new sim card. It's supposed to be between 3 and 5 days. I'll keep working at this though. Just in case I wait that long and it's not the fix.

I've tried (at the suggestion of many forum senior members) downloading Handcent and GO SMS Pro in the mean time. Handcent just didn't do anything at all. GO SMS Pro was sounding promising when I found a site that teaches you how to set up your own SMSC number in the settings. I followed that to a T and still ended up not being able to send a message. So far the only thing I can send messages with is Voxer. Since it uses data only. I can only talk to my wife and my boss because they're apparently my only contacts with Voxer. Guess what? I can't invite my other phone contacts to Voxer though because...you guessed it, the invite gets sent to them via SMS. : PULLS HAIR:

I did the OOKLA speedtest of my internet usage today. 14.64mbps download and 7.45mbps upload which is not horrible per se. Could be better for sure since I'm on 4G LTE when I got those readings!

$45 a month (per phone for my wife and I) sounds damn appealing when you just dropped a $280 a month contract. The customer service (see also *barely understandable accent and apparently recycling the same garbage from instruction papers in front of their face) is NOT worth the $45. If the new sim card they send me does not solve my problem, I will either return to AT&T on a GoPhone contract with my Note 2 phone or shopping their other contracts.

My wifes iPhone 4s involved a lot of jumping through hoops too, to get her internet and MMS messages working. I dug online for 2 days before finding her fix at XDA developers forum.

Straight talk does not include enough information in their APN settings to make the switch an easy procedure. Several of the APN fields that they suggest leaving blank is not the correct choice. This was the case with getting my internet working on my phone also. It's just not accurate. Results are varied all across the web though. The varied issues often times come with no rhyme or reason.

You want the cheap...you get the cheap. I believe GunCrank said this once before, referring to guns. Well folks...I got THE cheap. Kicking my own ass since. Just warning you guys not to make the same mistake as me and listening to everyone around me saying how much of a deal Straight Talk network is.

I'll update this thread when I get the new sim and let you all know how this goes.

/rant

[Shineybore]

Hope you get it working. Nothing wrong with trying to save money.

[SNL]

I got virgin mobile. Works great. Dont get to bring a note tho. I have used a tmobile phone on att before with just a sim swap and my txt worked fine.

[ProCroation]

So my new SIM card arrived today. I installed it immediately and placed a call to Straight Talk via a different phone (wifes iPhone) to activate it. I am well finished activating my new SIM and am able to place calls as well as send MMS, yet still cannot receive them nor send/receive SMS yet. It's been a several hours now and nothing. This sucks. I didn't want to wipe my phone completely but I tried it. Back to factory settings and still nothing. In the process of downloading all my apps and putting all my pictures back on my phone now. Blah.

[SNL]

Not sure hoe they screwed up a gsm sim based phone service...fail walmart...fail

[shelbygoat]

thanks for your experience, i was thinking about switching over once i come back from korea and dumping sprint. This is making think twice about it.

[ProCroation]

For what it's worth I sort of have an answer now. My SMS and MMS both work now as well as internet.

After putting my new SIM card in and having Straight Talk re-provision my account, then hard resetting my phone, it ended up working after about 5 or 6 hours. I kept trying to send SMS off and on during that time and suddenly a message made it to my wifes phone and she was able to reply. So far everyone in my contacts can get messages and reply. It was Straight Talks problem all along. My original SIM and account was not provisioned correct even though every Rep I spoke with said otherwise all this time.

I still stand by my original opinion that their customer service is horrid at best. Will I still be going to AT&T GoPhone contract as of right now? No.

If I have another problem with my service in any way shape or form, will I give their customer service a 2nd (I should be saying 8th or 9th actually) chance? No...at that point I will make the switch to AT&T GoPhone and say good riddance.

It's working for now, so I'm going to try and ride it out. I will never give them the time of day to hear my voice on their 800 number again, nor will my I.P. address ever shadow the metaphorical doorway to their chat room again.

So there's that.

[Toddinlou]

I had a similar experience with Cricket years ago but it was only problems receiving MMS messages from AT&T customers but other carriers were fine. Finally I grew very tired of trying to deal with Cricket and switched to AT&T for about the same price and everything has always just worked.

[ProCroation]

I had a similar experience with Cricket years ago but it was only problems receiving MMS messages from AT&T customers but other carriers were fine. Finally I grew very tired of trying to deal with Cricket and switched to AT&T for about the same price and everything has always just worked.

The only reason I left AT&T to begin with was cost. My wife and I had 5 lines total, 1 for her, 1 for me, 1 for my mother (to save her money by adding a line for $10, 1 for my father (for the same reason as my mother) and lastly 1 for my niece because when she was going away to college she didn't have money for a phone.

At that point in time our phone bill was averaging almost $300 ($260-$280)

Well my niece graduated, got a job, and her own plan, my parents moved on to their own plan (an AT&T package that also included a home phone and wifi without cutting into our shared minutes) and with just the wife and I on our plan we were averaging a bill hovering around the $200 mark ($199-$220)

$45 per person for the wife and I, sounded like sex to my wallet and our contract time was up so we made the plunge. I paid for it with 7 days of no text but I weathered the storm.

I need a drink.

[kokopelli]

I've spent the last few days comparing all the plans to get rid of AT&T also. I'm on an old 'family talk' plan, paying $70 bucks for my phone, then $10 each for 3 extra lines for the wife , stepson and daughter. Add $20 bucks for the joyous privilege of using an iphone that my wife requires, plus $30 a month for unlimited texting, and I'm at $160 ish a month $160 bucks a month for ONE freaking 'smart' phone and 3 dumb ones!

Problem is we're under contract on 3 lines still because of phone 'upgrades' we made.
T-Mobile has the trade-in deal and they reimburse you for the Early Termination Fees that AT&T lord over you, but her iphone is the only phone we have they have on the trade-in list.

[SNL]

Virgin $35/month > all

[BIGC]

I am still with Verizon. around 15 years or so now.. Our bill for 4 phones is just over $200 a month for unlimited talk and text and shared 6gb of data..

[ProCroation]

I've spent the last few days comparing all the plans to get rid ours also. I'm on an old 'family talk' plan, paying $70 bucks for my phone, then $10 each for 3 extra lines for the wife , stepson and daughter. Add $20 bucks for the joyous privilege of using an iphone that my wife requires, plus $30 a month for unlimited texting, and I'm at $160 ish a month $160 bucks a month for ONE freaking 'smart' phone and 3 dumb ones!

Problem is we're under contract on 3 lines still because of phone 'upgrades' we made.
T-Mobile has the trade-in deal and they reimburse you for the Early Termination Fees that AT&T lord over you, but her iphone is the only phone we have they have on the trade-in list.

Yeah my wife had an iPhone and had my note 2 smart phone then 3 dumb ones lol. That sucks, waiting for contracts to end. We made our minds up a year ago and waited for ours to end. I never knew about that trade in deal which sounds great. I have one brother here in town that has t mobile and he tends to lose service from one end of town to the other so that scared me. Lol

Sorry to hear you only had one phone on that list man.

[ProCroation]

Virgin $35/month > all

35 a month gets you what through that service may I ask? I have no idea how their coverage is in Shelbyville but I might research that in case things started going wrong with straight talk.

[ProCroation]

I am still with Verizon. around 15 years or so now.. Our bill for 4 phones is just over $200 a month for unlimited talk and text and shared 6gb of data..

I had a 2 gig data plan all to myself and every 2nd week after paying our bill I would get a text saying I had used 100% of it lol. I used to rack up the overage charges in data. I started using wifi and fixed that. Lol

We wanted to get away from phone bills in the hundreds and try to keep it under 100 altogether. We wanted to see how that kind of extra money would help us. We paid all of our credit cards and my wifes car off too. So home life will hopefully be more relaxed with choices to go out and do things or save for vacation. It's just something that we started looking into after I got promoted to a new position at work and had a lot more money to play with. Why not add some more money into the play funds?

Life is looking up with all the new changes. So I hope I can continue to say goal accomplished. It's been a good start to a new year minus this hiccup with straight talk.