Meengla
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Much of this post is copy/paste from my own post to another forum. The info probably only applies to USA residents.
Short background: My wife and I switched to Straight Talk from AT&T some years ago. I switched back to AT&T partly because of Straight Talk quality issues and partly because I needed 'tethering' because I was managing some 'Mission Critical Systems' servers then. For my wife, $45/month at Straight Talk was saving compared to AT&T then cheapest prepaid GO Phone at $60/month.
So here is the copy/paste. I hope it helps someone.
----------------------------------------------------
Today my wife's Nokia Lumia 520 has been moved from her 1+ year old Straight Talk $45/month plan to an AT&T GO Phone $45/month. We didn't have a SIM Card and so drove to a nearby AT&T corporate store. It took about 30 minutes to have her number ported, a new account opened etc. Not too bad.
A couple of considerations:
1) Straight Talk WAS good while it offered the $45/month plan but even then there were dropped calls, possibly slower internet internet on her 4G phone. But the icing on the cake was when her phone would often no longer receive group text message nor could it no longer receive MMS messages; both of these because of no fault of her own (no APN changes by her--they used to work).
2) The AT&T's GO Phone plan at $45/month will become $40/month after the Auto Refill discount. That would even BEAT Straight Talk's 5% discount on their $45/month Auto Refill plan.
3) Don't get me started on Straight Talk's pathetic Customer Service should there was any problem!
4) But today's switch from ST to AT&T was not as smooth as I would have thought! The AT&T store guy enrolled us in some $45/month NO DATA plan. I protested and said that I am supposed to get 1gb and he resisted me for a while. But I was NOT going to walk away with a junk plan--that would be even worse that Straight Talk. Anyway, he searched and finally came up with 'Oh, yeah, this must have been introduced today!'. Sure!!! He wanted me to get the $60/month GO Phone plan. Sneaky!!!
5) I asked the AT&T guy if tethering was an option on either the $45/month plan or the $60/plan (both GO Phone). He looked up as said: 'No'. Of course I knew from this forum some people had success with tethering. So I tested the tethering upon coming home--disconnected both my laptop and the wife's phone to the home Wifi and then enabled 'Internet Sharing' on her and then connected my laptop to her's. Lo and behold my laptop got the ip through her phone's tethering. It works!!
6) Forget about Walmart--or at most, get the $45 credit from them and use an unused SIM Card (any ATT SIM Card--pre/postpaid will work)--then you don't have to go to an ATT store.
Short background: My wife and I switched to Straight Talk from AT&T some years ago. I switched back to AT&T partly because of Straight Talk quality issues and partly because I needed 'tethering' because I was managing some 'Mission Critical Systems' servers then. For my wife, $45/month at Straight Talk was saving compared to AT&T then cheapest prepaid GO Phone at $60/month.
So here is the copy/paste. I hope it helps someone.
----------------------------------------------------
Today my wife's Nokia Lumia 520 has been moved from her 1+ year old Straight Talk $45/month plan to an AT&T GO Phone $45/month. We didn't have a SIM Card and so drove to a nearby AT&T corporate store. It took about 30 minutes to have her number ported, a new account opened etc. Not too bad.
A couple of considerations:
1) Straight Talk WAS good while it offered the $45/month plan but even then there were dropped calls, possibly slower internet internet on her 4G phone. But the icing on the cake was when her phone would often no longer receive group text message nor could it no longer receive MMS messages; both of these because of no fault of her own (no APN changes by her--they used to work).
2) The AT&T's GO Phone plan at $45/month will become $40/month after the Auto Refill discount. That would even BEAT Straight Talk's 5% discount on their $45/month Auto Refill plan.
3) Don't get me started on Straight Talk's pathetic Customer Service should there was any problem!
4) But today's switch from ST to AT&T was not as smooth as I would have thought! The AT&T store guy enrolled us in some $45/month NO DATA plan. I protested and said that I am supposed to get 1gb and he resisted me for a while. But I was NOT going to walk away with a junk plan--that would be even worse that Straight Talk. Anyway, he searched and finally came up with 'Oh, yeah, this must have been introduced today!'. Sure!!! He wanted me to get the $60/month GO Phone plan. Sneaky!!!
5) I asked the AT&T guy if tethering was an option on either the $45/month plan or the $60/plan (both GO Phone). He looked up as said: 'No'. Of course I knew from this forum some people had success with tethering. So I tested the tethering upon coming home--disconnected both my laptop and the wife's phone to the home Wifi and then enabled 'Internet Sharing' on her and then connected my laptop to her's. Lo and behold my laptop got the ip through her phone's tethering. It works!!
6) Forget about Walmart--or at most, get the $45 credit from them and use an unused SIM Card (any ATT SIM Card--pre/postpaid will work)--then you don't have to go to an ATT store.
