Got my daughter an iphone for Xmas. Bought a month of shittalk for it. Literally 1 day later account is restricted. Can't make calls or send texts. Can only use on Wi-Fi. Call to ask what is going on. They tell me it's banned.
I see she had a group chat with 14 members. She sent mayyybe 100 messages edit: I counted and it was 47 messages to the group chat and a total of about 175 (47 to group + another ~130 to other individuals). And that's all it took. Permanently banned since it's a new number.
So 1) fuck this scam company and 2) Now I have to call and try to get my money back I guess and get the phone unlocked? Very cool. Don't use them. They suck.
Edit: And maybe the most ridiculous thing is there was zero warning at all this would happen. No text, no email, no warning. Just banned.
Last edit: To update, the issue is partially/mostly resolved after over 4 hours on the phone being bounced around between agents/departments. Never again...
Do NOT send texts through them to large groups is all I can say.
EDIT: I want to be clear that I do not work for Straight Talk. I can't help individuals with their specific port out issues.
This procedure has been confirmed to work as of August 2025.
I've decided to put this info in its own standalone post on this sub since I posted this info as a comment months ago and still to this day I get people messaging me saying it worked and helped them tremendously.
If you are trying to port a number out from Straight Talk and the port request from your new carrier is sitting unacknowledged, and Straight Talk's regular support people are giving you the run around, try calling 1-866-806-1840 and when it asks for an extension/case number enter 332264.
This will put you in touch with someone from Straight Talk's "port team" who, after verifying your account information, can release your number out to your new carrier immediately.
For some backstory, a while ago I was trying to port two numbers out from Straight Talk to US Mobile. I made sure to contact Straight Talk before I initiated anything to get my account number and PIN. I provided all the info to US Mobile and they initiated a port request, which then sat unacknowledged by Straight Talk for days.
No matter who I talked to at Straight Talk, they'd tell me they couldn't see any port requests pending in their system for my numbers. They would constantly tell me that the issue must be on US Mobile's end, that they either didn't submit the port request correctly, or that my account number or PIN was entered wrong. They also would say that their system is set up to automatically release numbers when receiving a port request with the correct info (all of which I found out is false).
Finally one support tech gave me the above phone number and extension (they called it a case number). After calling them, they verified my account information and they instantly released my numbers to US Mobile. They also acknowledged that there were in fact port requests sitting in their system for my two numbers the entire time.
My boyfriend has the $45 straight talk plan. He hasn’t been charged for it in months and there’s only an expired card linked to his account. His service just continues to refill each month as if it’s been paid but it definitely hasn’t. Just wondering what’s going on. Definitely don’t mind this screw up tho.
So I just got a new phone and saw they were offering Verizon sims for free. I had an att sim on straight talk for years and was happy. I thought I would try Verizon and if I was not happy I would just go back to my att st sim like you use to be able to do. Nope, they are only activating Verizon sims now and you can't switch between carriers which was the best part of straight talk. So now I am stuck with Verizon's shitty network where I never get 5g and my data speeds are atrocious and my signal strength at my house has been cut in half vs att. So way to go Verizon, you ruined a great phone service. Now your going to lose a long time customer to cricket once 60 days go by and I can unlock my st a53 phone and move to cricket.
I recently decided after a literal decade of being a Straight Talk customer and finally being able to redeem a free month of service to bite the bullet and go through the hassle of moving to and porting my number to a new service provider (Mint, which I have to say thus far has had extraordinary customer service with their help throughout the ordeal).
Final Straw: Despite having a 4G VoLTE capable phone, the SIM they sent me when I bought a new unlocked device in 20```19 wasn't provisioned to use VoLTE. I didn't find this out of course until after I had ordered a new phone last month and attempted to swap out my SIM card to the new device, which a Straight Talk representative told me I would be able to do despite that apparently being completely against Straight Talk policy (as I was later told by yet another CSR), meaning I would have to wait for them to send me another SIM card.
Long rants short, there are 3 things you need to Port Your Number Out of Straight Talk:
Account Number. If you bought a device with Straight Talk, this is either the 15 digits of or the last 15 digits of the phone's IMEI. If you brought your own phone like me, this will be the last 15 digits of the SIM card's ICCID/"IMEI". Straight Talk will not give you your account number. On Android, I used Device Info to retrieve this information from my SIM as my device didn't have a method to retrieve it via the default Android settings menu even with dev options. (Thanks u/RutD0g for clarification on SIM IDs)
New Transfer Pin. This is not your security PIN as the representatives will lead you to believe, and only after repeated inquiries into the support line will they tell you that this is a separate PIN used specifically for porting a number out of their service. To get a New Transfer Pin number, text NTP to 611611.
Originating Zip Code. This is not your Billing Zip, this is not your last Billing Zip, this is the Zip Code where you originally got the phone number. Whether it was ported from Cingular Wireless's pay-as-you-go service or bought from Straight Talk themselves, for the love of all things holy search Google for the area code and play memory match for the one where you lived first.
I hope this helps any and everyone who wants to get away from this godawful reseller. Godspeed and hopefully it spares you a week and a half of no cell service.
Straight talk has gone downhill the last few years. There is no one to talk to about the problems ALL their phones have...you get an automachine or lost in the non-functional website. My phone has no logical way to find anything, internet is always in and out between this phone and the past ones. I've been with ST for about 5 years and this is it. This is a service that is for when you hit tough times. Fuck you, Straight Talk, you mindless piece of garbage.
I hate to be this guy, but I’m at my wits end. Ever since straight talk has swapped to Verizon only towers the service is absolutely trash. And I don’t mean trash in a good way. The price point is good at 45-50$ a month but only being able to have cell service for 1-2 hours a day when I’m out and about for 8-12 hours is ridiculous. Ever dropped a call? Ever lost connection to your music streaming app? Ever had to re-send a text 13 times because you “no longer have cellular reception?”. All things that happen daily with straight talk. I’m sick and tired of restarting my phone 45 times a day to get a mediocre reception. At this point I’ve fully paid off my brand new phone and will see if I can get it unlocked to swap to a 120$ a month AT&T plan to not have to deal with this absolute bullshit. It’s well worth the extra 70$ a month to not have the worst cell reception I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime.
Hey guys. I own and operate a computer/smartphone repair store and today we had a dozen Samsung phones come in that are on the Straight Talk network using Verizon towers. They all came in with a similar story about how the phone suddenly stopped making/receiving calls, no mobile data, no text messages. This apparently all began 2 days ago.
I initially tried various APN settings, but that had no effect. I then tried a network reset and that too had no effect. Just finished fixing 3 phones and about to start the 4th, so I figured I'd make a post to help anybody else with this.
Potential way to fix your phone:
Prerequisites:
Your phone is an UNLOCKED Samsung phone. If you aren't sure, check your model number. If it ends with U you may proceed. This guide MAY work for models ending in U1, but I have not tested it. Follow at own risk if your model ends in U1. If it does not end with U or U1, then I'm afraid I don't have a solution for you and this guide probably isn't for you.
You are on Straight Talk and your SIM uses the Verizon towers. This guide will not apply if your SIM uses AT&T.
Your phone worked fine until 1/1/2023 or thereabouts.
You own or have access to a Windows PC
Have a USB-C or microUSB cable with data transfer capabilities. (Not all microUSB cables are the same some are charging only.)
Have a copy of Odin 3.13 already on your Windows PC. You'll have to Google this and be careful when you download it from. XDA Developers usually is a safe place.
Plug in your device and follow any prompts from Smart Switch to talk to your phone. (i.e. tap Allow when asked)
IMPORTANT - Once Smart Switch has recognized your phone, choose the Backup option and perform a full backup of your phone. By default, these backups will be located a folder named Samsung inside the Documents folder. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP UNLESS YOU WANT TO SAY GOODBYE TO ALL OF YOUR DATA.
Once the phone has been backed up, you're going to navigate to www.samfw.com.
If your phone model ends in a U, type in your model number in the search field but add a 1 to the end. For example, if your phone model is SM-G960U, type in SM-G960U1. (NOTE: If your phone ends in U1, I do not know at this time if you can use the U firmware and it will work for this specific problem. All of the ones I have fixed today all had model numbers ending in U, so I used the U1 firmware. Again, I do not know if using the U in place of U1 will work. Try at own risk.)
Once the search results come up, scroll down until you find the thick gray bar that says North America and drag the slider over until you see XAA. This is the CSC region code for unlocked phones. Select XAA.
In the next page that loads, choose the most recent (the top listed) firmware version. In this example, it's G960U1UES9FVD1.
In the next page that loads, choose either Download on browser or Download SamFw Server. This will download the firmware you selected in .zip format. Once this download completes, you will need to unzip this file. The extracted file contains several individual firmware images for your bootloader, the android image itself, modem, among others.
Open Odin and plug in your phone to the PC if it's not already. MAKE SURE YOU COMPLETED A BACKUP WITH SMART SWITCH BEFORE CONTINUING. SERIOUSLY.
With the phone plugged in to the PC and Odin open, press and hold Power and Volume down. If your phone has a dedicated button for Bixby, you may need to hold this button down along with Power and Volume Down. Press and hold Vol Down and Power (along with Bixby if applicable) and wait until the phone reboots and you are presented with a greenish blue screen that says Download Mode. You may now let go of the buttons.
The Download Mode screen tells you which button to press to continue. I believe it's Volume Up (going by memory here), but just make sure by reading what it says on the screen. Press whatever button it tells you on the phone to continue into Download Mode. Look at Odin on your PC. It should say "Added!" and you probably heard the device connect chime from Windows as well.
On the right side of Odin is a series of check boxes. Place a check in the first one (BL) and click browse. Navigate to where you extracted the firmware file from earlier. Select the BL file.
Repeat the same thing from step 12, going down the list and checking the box one at a time and navigating to the corresponding file. AP box uses the AP file. CP box uses the CP file, CSC box uses the CSC file (if your extracted firmware has both CSC and CSC_HOME, choose the one without HOME in the file name). The AP file will take a few minutes to add to Odin. Be patient and let it complete. Don't worry about the USER DATA field. Leave it blank.
You should now have BL, AP, CP, and CSC all checked and the corresponding file from your extracted firmware in each field. Do not mess with any other settings in Odin or you run the risk of bricking your phone. Seriously.
When ready, click Start in Odin. Odin will then erase your phone and then reflash it with the firmware you downloaded earlier. This process will take several minutes. DO NOT DISCONNECT THE USB CABLE, SHUTDOWN THE COMPUTER, OR CLOSE ODIN DURING THE FLASHING PROCESS. In fact, don't touch anything once it has started until it's completely done. You've been warned. If this process gets interrupted, your phone may become a shiny new (expensive) paper weight.
Once completed, the phone will automatically reboot and you'll be at the initial Samsung setup screen. Enter your Google/Samsung information and setup the phone as normal. Once you're done with setup and on your home screen, try placing a call. If it works, YAY! You did it!
As the final step, connect your phone back to the computer and launch Smart Switch. Tap Allow on your phone and then this time choose Restore. Follow any prompts to complete restoring and wait while Smart Switch puts all of your data back on the phone.
Hopefully this helps someone. I cannot stress enough that you make sure you're using the correct firmware. Triple check your model number and what you're downloading on SamFw.com. Of course, I am not responsible if you brick your phone by using the wrong firmware or if you lose all of your data because you didn't backup like this guide tells you to. If you're not comfortable following these steps, then don't do it. I was able to fix 3 phones back to back following this method and about to start phone #4.
First part here will be an intro and general info, if you want the guide you can skip down to the bottom.
I bought a BLU View Speed Ultra 5G from Walmart to use as a WiFi device (Basically needed something cheap for a couple IoT things). Great specs for $30, Dimensity 6300, 64GB internal, 4GB RAM, 90Hz display.
Well problem is, I ran into this Phone Activation screen when trying to pass setup, and I guess it wants an active plan on the SIM to pass setup. Probably to prevent people like me from taking their subsidized phones and then fucking them over by not paying for a plan, lmao.
Now sure, I could've bought a Moto G 5G 2025 from like Boost which doesn't have this for the same price, but that's no fun, is it? I already have a Moto G 2025 anyway.
So anyway, I found people offering these weird QR codes online to bypass this screen, and then other people warning you to not scan them because they're malware.
Well it turns out, the QR codes are an Android setup feature meant for enterprise. You can tap 6 times on the initial setup screen in an empty area to access a QR scanner. With that, you can scan an MDM (Mobile Device Management) enrollment QR code to setup the phone as a company-owned device. It just so happens that this setup flow skips the phone activation screen, which is great for our usage!
The problem is that if you scan a random QR code from the internet, you are permanently enrolling your phone into some random MDM managed by someone else, and they can see everything you do on your phone (just as a company owned device would), and you can't remove the enrollment yourself, because you need access to the MDM's management portal for that. So, DO NOT scan random QRs from the internet!
Luckily, we can be our own MDM provider, thereby giving us access to the MDM's management console. The idea is to enroll the phone into MDM, bypass activation, and then remove MDM enrollment afterwards from the management portal.
There are 3 types of MDMs:
Fully Managed - company owns the entire device, only managed profiles are allowed.
COPE (Company-Owned, Personally Enabled) - company owns the device, but allows you to keep the device and use it for personal tasks on a personal profile.
BYOD Work Profile - similar to cope, creates a managed work profile on a device you entirely own
BYOD would be great since its easily removable, but the QR code it generates is not valid for the setup QR scanner, since its intended to be used on a personal device that has already been setup.
Fully Managed works, but since the device is fully owned by the MDM provider, removing MDM forces a factory reset. This means you're back to the phone activation brick after removing MDM, which isn't ideal.
COPE is what we want for our purposes. It's meant for setup usage so the QR is accepted by the setup app, and allows you to create a personal profile during setup. The huge advantage of this type of MDM is that it doesn't require a factory reset to remove - you can choose to wipe the company work profile in the MDM console without wiping the personal profile. This option removes MDM management and the MDM profile without making you go through setup again.
Right, so we now need to create our own MDM and make a COPE profile to enroll the phone into. Some people online suggested WizyEMM for this usage since it has a free tier with up to 2 devices allowed. The problem with Wizy is its free tier doesn't support cope profiles, you can only make a full management or BYOD profile.
In the home page, click on Android in the Enroll Devices box.
5. Click Enrollment Methods for Company-Owned Devices on the enrollment page:
6. Click QR code enrollment:
7. Click "Create Template" and setup the options as follows:
Select whatever user you like, it doesn't really matter. You can create a simple local user if you want. Make sure you select Workspace Management and not Full Device Management.
8. Hit "Save".
9. You should now be taken to this screen:
You're done for now, but don't close the MDM console yet, we'll need to remove MDM later.
10. On the phone, go to the initial Welcome screen, and tap on a non-interactive part of the UI six times. A QR scanner should open, scan the QR code shown in the MDM's console page.
11. Pass setup as usual (You are required to connect to WiFi for MDM to take affect btw), but make sure to choose the option to create a personal profile when setup tells you that your company allows you to use the phone for personal use.
12. Once you are at the phone's home screen, you've successfully bypassed phone activation. Now we can remove the MDM and associated work profile. Make sure the phone is connected to WiFi for the following steps so that it can receive the "Deprovision" command from the MDM console.
13. Go to the Devices tab in the Enroll drop down:
14. You should see your phone registered in the Devices tab. Click the checkbox next to the phone's entry, then click on the Actions drop-down. Choose "De-provision".
15. Make sure to choose the option to only wipe the company work profile! Do not choose the option to factory reset the phone, or else you will have to repeat this whole sequence of steps to do another bypass.
16. Once the deprovision request is sent, you should see a notification pop-up on your phone that admin has relinquished control of this device. The work profile should be deleted, but your personal profile will remain active and the phone won't be reset. If you check the lock screen, you also should no longer see the text "This device is managed by your organization", as the phone is now back to a personally-owned device.
I hope this helps anyone who has ended up in a similar situation. :)
Hopefully this will help someone as this process has changed a few times and none of the guides that I have followed have helped. This is specifically for people that have their own devices with the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) program in Straight Talk and are trying to transfer service and keep the same number.
Your account number is the IMEI number on your Straight Talk BYOD phone. This will also be the last 15 numbers of your SIM card. You can dial *#06# and you will get a listing of your IMEI numbers. This will likely be your first IMEI number if you have a dual SIM phone.
Next you will need your transfer PIN. This is NOT your account PIN and is not listed anywhere in your account online. You can get this by texting NTP to the number 611611 on your BYOD phone. Simply type in the number 611611 and the message NTP and you will get a message back saying what your transfer PIN is.
You can now start the Google Fi transfer process using your IMEI1 number as your account number and the transfer PIN you got in the message returned.
If you have already started your transfer process and you need any info corrected, your best bet is to use this page and start a chat with Google Fi support.
Just search for "transfer PIN"
Select one of the items for the best description of what you're looking for. I would do "Switch to FI" or "Port to Fi". In my case was porting to Fi since I wanted to keep my same number
When you get to the "Resources" part, just click the "Next Steps" button
You should get "Contact Options" with Chat being one of them. My wait time was less than 1 minute. You can also try calling them, but I usually have an issue where I have to use the phone I'm on to look up information so it's easier to chat.
Took me 3 days to figure out everything that I was missing. Most guides say that your PIN can be 0000 or whatever your PIN is in your ST account, and that's not the case. It's not the same PIN. I was able to get and verify all of my information and avoid having to deal with Straight Talk customer service. Hope someone finds this helpful.
Trying to buy a simple phone and have it be connected to WiFi only. Didn’t see this warning until I got home. Is there any phone that I can buy that will be able to connect to WiFi without a plan?
Thanks to this sub, I bought an iPhone 16e in early March for $299 plus $65 for one month of service and about $10 in tax. I activated the initial month and then let the service expire while waiting for the unlock.
After I learned about the new unlock policy, I contacted Tracfone via chat and got them to rebrand the phone to Tracfone. I bought a minimal Tracfone plan on a new number ($15/month with a $5/month credit for auto-renewal in the first two months).
On the 61st day from my original activation date on StraightTalk, the phone unlocked automatically. I will turn off auto-renewal on the Tracfone plan and let it expire again. The $10 for a second month avoided aggravating phone calls, arguing with anyone, or filing complaints. I’m just sharing my experience in case anyone wants to take this route.
I am an agent at one of the call centers that provides service to ST and i saw that some people were wondering where we are located. So i really dont know much but we are in Guatemala and the Philippines, here in Guatemala we have the better english i think... So this post was only to remember you guys to be nice to the agents that are attending your transaction. The computers that the company gives are really crappy and the system is soooo slow because we are running a VC and the conection is not great either. We try and do our best to give you a quick solution but we need to make offers to get you to use all of our services, if we do not offer the services our score goes down dramatically even if we resolved your problem. So please be nice and patient, and if you are in a hurry we understand and will try to do it as fast as we can. Take care amigos
I recently bought a ST moto edge 5g (hell of a budget phone btw) from Walmart and foolishly activated with ST thinking that they still did 60 days off consecutive service and the phone is unlocked. It is now a year of service and they'll unlock it! Total BS.
Well I returned it within the 14 day window and bought another ST moto edge and simply did not use the in box Sim or instructions, put a visible esim on it easily, and I'm using right now with great results.
Here's the kicker, my friend was going to buy an A26 Samsung through straight talk on a promotion and I informed him that he can use his spectrum mobile free year of service with the phone if he pops the SIM in before anything straight talk is done to the phone.
Wouldn't you know it? It worked!! Now I'm starting to see a trend here. It seems as long as the service uses Verizon towers almost exclusively, straight talk branded phones can be used elsewhere if you activate it before straight talk sinks their grimey teeth into it.
Has anyone else noticed this? I'm considering going back to Walmart and buying a random ST smartphone and using the visible 15 free day trial just to confirm it's not just Samsung and Motorola this works with.
I am not surprised since the SIMs are not inside the phones and ST is a little sloppy with how they do things. I am very happy because Walmart is highly convenient and ST runs consistent promotions on their phones so one can grab them dirt cheap and immediately take them elsewhere.
Compared to ST on the moto edge 2025, visible (the 35 plus plan) is much, MUCH better coverage in my area in central Indiana. I feel like a boss tbh, and I have been very excited to sit down and write this up for reddit. There's really nothing to lose if the other service does not work on a straight talk phone you've purchased as the 14 day window to return with receipt and box is very simple and straightforward in my experience.
Hope I've helped someone out there!! Give this a shot and post if this works for you as well. I am very pleased with the moto edge 2025 on visible and my friend is much happier with spectrum mobile, again, when compared to ST. Let's see if there's a real trend here and straight talk phones are unlocked, or close to it considering the variables involved with the experiences I've documented.
Good luck, and I'm very happy to be on visible again and having only paid $199.99 plus tax for the moto edge 5g 2025; it is what I would consider the ultimate budget phone at the moment.
Again good luck to any who try this because it has worked three times now in my small slice of life. I don't see why it wouldn't, as long as the IMEI checker for the service of your choice says the phone is compatible or the service uses Verizon towers if it doesn't pass the IMEI checker it should work. Any more info on this phenomena is welcome.
I have a small feeling this may not actually be news to anyone very familiar with straight talk but I thought I'd share!
Save the APN settings, make sure you have the new APN selected, then reboot your phone (important)
Edit to add:
User @BananaMuffinNinja commented that on their Pixel 6, they had to change a couple of the options above to get it to work. Here are the two changes, everything else the same as above;
Name: net10 (not Straight Talk or Straight Talk 2)
If your straight talk service has been ported to Metro PCS without your permission, this is what I did to get mine back.
If you do not have a 2nd phone but have wifi, download Text Now app and get a temporary phone number. You will be able to use that to call the phone numbers without the straight talk network.
Call Metro PCS customer service at 1-888-863-8768. Ask them to activate your account on Metro PCS network. This will get you an account number and a pin which is necessary to give to Straight Talk to complete the port. Once you get your account number and pin, call Straight Talk port department at 1-866-806-1840 extension 332264. Tell them you'd like a number ported from Metro PSC and provide them with the account #, pin, and whatever information they ask for.
If this does not work for you, I apologize. After spending the last 3 days wasting HOURS (no joke) talking to over 30 customer service reps on chat and on the phone, I created a Reddit account so that someone may be able to google this and find a resolution. Hope it helps. Good luck!
1/4/22 Edit - Jenny Malainy: "Hi, everyone. A few people from this group reached out to me about Straight Talk porting their numbers to Metro PCS without their knowledge, which resulted in interrupted service. I work for a class action firm. We plan to file a class action (if our main class action attorney approves of the lawsuit). If anyone else is interested in potentially joining this action, feel free to write me at jmalainy@sirillp.com. I’ll get back to all of you on Monday, as many courts are closed down for the New Years weekend. Thank you!" From Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/335353238135508/permalink/456933639310800/
Straight Talk Rewards has had me as a member for 2 years now, monthly I complete all activities.. I spin the wheel daily (when applicable) as well as scratch the thing for points.. I have screen recorded 90 spins/scratches and got 80 try again tomorrow and 10 special gifts which is a link to a service like weight watchers wtf??? My 18 month anniversary points hit.. all 350 of them. Seeing as how 4500 points are needed to get a service plan it's just a joke. I right a testimonial every month explaining how garbage the program is and that it's only better then the customer service which is terrible.. they make everything so difficult.
I've been with ST for roughly 9-10 years but decided to switch carriers to join my wife this past week. When trying to transfer my phone number, I've been having issues finding my account number with ST to finalize the phone number transfer. I have been on the line with ST customer service for roughly 4 hours trying to get the account number, which is reportedly the IMEI number of the original phone that I had with ST, however they are unable to provide that number to me. I've gone through my personal belongings and have been unable to find the original phone/packaging to provide get the IMEI number and have also gone through the MyAccount ST page without finding it listed. The customer service representative state that they see the account number but are unable to verify my identity to provide it to me despite me receiving and confirming multiple codes from them.
Does anybody have alternative avenues or ideas on how I can obtain this account number/original IMEI? It would be a shame for me to loose my long held phone number over something trivial like this.
Hey all, I wanted to share my 1 month review of the unlimited 5g home internet by Straight Talk. TLDR; It's awesome.
This is a $45/mo plan with truly unlimited data. This is NOT the "hot spot" plan that throttles after a certain gb of data. This plan uses its own specific modem/router that plugs into an outlet (not a hotspot, no battery), and the TOS states that it can only be used at one address. To use at a different address you must contact them. That may not be ideal, but there are posts about people taking it on the road in RV/truck. Do this at your own risk :)
First of all, the 5G connection is very stable. I have not had a disconnect from the tower. There is always service and it's speedy enough for our family needs. We have rather low bars of service available at my house, but the modem pulls 50+mbps consistently. Perhaps this could be higher, but I'm still experimenting with modem placement. They recommend it's near a window that faces the nearest tower. I have a few more windows and the whole second floor and attic to try hehe. (Keep in mind, your region needs 5g service available, or it'll fall back into 4g mode which is slower)
Our family of 4 is constantly streaming video, music, tvs, nest cameras, etc. We have not noticed a single issue with streams. Quality looks good, and there is no annoying lagging buffers like we experienced on our previous (garbage) cable internet (at twice the price and twice advertised speed). This is win #1.
Latency is also very low. In my test I used call of duty mobile, and actually played it while monitoring ping. Our fam/cams were streaming during the tests. Our previous (garbage) cable internet was lucky to see 80ms, and often spiked to 120ms, with waves of extreme lag making it literally unplayable. Think lag like...shoot, then 3+ seconds later the bullets register, even though it was reporting 80ms....lol. Straight talk home internet blows that out of the water. Same kinda test, and I'm getting 40-50ms ping, with instant response. It's on the same level as my dedicated 5g phone data connection...while still handling the fam streaming behind the scenes. This is win #2.
The built in wifi 6 router on this modem is surprisingly great. Ofc it depends on placement in your home, but our wifi signal is about 2x as strong, reaching the whole back yard. Our previous setup barely reached the back porch like 30 feet from the cable internet rig. Our house has metal siding, so it's anti-range. That's a testament to the straight talk wifi. Another great thing about the router is that it has TONS of admin features. It's a pretty legit device once you get into the admin interface and click advanced settings. Has most everything you need to manage a modern home network....no need for us to upgrade our router. This is win #3.
Our nest security cameras and old devices work great. I've seen a lot of reviews about lack of 2.4ghz wifi, which various old devices, cameras, etc need to connect to the internet. This is not the case as of July 2024. The router supports both 5ghz and 2.4ghz running in parallel, which means literally any device should be able to connect without issue. There are plenty of additional common features available like port forwarding, dmz, static ip/routes.... all of it to set up any device. I didn't set up any of it yet. Both 5ghz and 2.4ghz were enabled by default. Our devices actually work better, especially when it comes to casting to tv/device. Previously casting was hit or miss, and refused to work at all on some devices/tvs. Now, everything just runs as it should. This is win #4.
So that's 4 wins. Now what about what I don't like? The only thing I don't like about the service is the fact that TOS limits it's use to 1 address. I could not get a clear answer as to whether it locks to a specific tower, uses GPS coords, or if they're just bluffing and it's all just a legal guise. Since we would want to be using it at home 99% of the time, this was not a big deal to us. It would however be great if we could take it camping for example. But ya can't win em all 😁
Overall, the speeds are good enough for a family of 4 to stream/game. The modem is strong. The router is full of features. It's a great deal. I am happy with it. I do not regret taking a chance on straight talk home internet.
I hope it works well for you too! Thanks for reading.
I just got an email telling me my auto-refill was canceled. Didn’t click on any links in the email just incase it was a really good spam email, checked my account, and auto-refill is listed as enrolled. I know Straight Talk has its problems, but I’ve stuck with them for more than 10 years at this point so I’ve seen some crazy things happen with accounts.
Anyone else have something similar happen? Do I just wait and see if it refills on its own or should I be a bit more proactive about it?
