Straight Talk has upped the ante on throttling users!

[cooter55]

here we go again you get unlimited data.have not heard on here anywhere where people have had there service disconnected.so you want a data number,ok here it goes.say the limit is 1gb and they advertise and say this.now you hit that limit 10 days into your service.guess what your data is cut off till you renew 20 days latter and your data is restored.unlike post pay if you go over the limit as shown above you get charged on a monthly bill.if you do not pay you loose your service.

now with st as it is you might not have blazing data speeds but you have data for the duration of the 30 days.which one do you want.my personal choice is a slower speed with data when i need it for the duration of the 30 days.just food for thought.

[efparri]

HOW do you know that? Others say it's 2GB. Why can't ST tell us the limit?






I agree totally with you. It fits my situation well enough. Even though I will use over 4GB data this billing cycle, I'm only using about 500MB over ST's network. BUT, that doesn't mean we can't call Straight Talk out for their deceptive practices. The people who see ST doing no wrong have no moral compass, in my opinion.

Yes, AT&T started the evil, but ST doesn't have to follow along. 5,000 kbps suddenly slowing to say 50 kbps is not true "unlimited". You have cut off the water spigot for all intents and purposes. Yes, at least they aren't cancelling accounts, but they are still basically cutting off the data. (And anyone who says different really is either unbelievably stupid or a troll.) Yes, you can still make phone calls, so if you are in an emergency situation you can still call people.

And ST can STILL do that if they want. We aren't saying they can't control their own network, but don't PROMISE unlimited data and then not tell the limits of that data, if there are limits. MetroPCS, Solavei clearly tell the limits before you will be throttled. Straight Talk can do the same.

Even AT&T is changing to clear limits for smartphones:

http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/dat...id=zLLjXCAXyFF



Here's their current data plans for new customers. Yes, this is just the data plans, not the entire cost of being with AT&T. But you see they now have clear limits, and no longer FALSELY promise "unlimited" to smartphones. IF Straight Talk wants to implement a 2GB data cap before throttling, that's fine. Just BE UPFRONT, BE A MAN and tell us. Even AT&T is now.

Your point is invalid. AT&T Mobility does not offer unlimited plans at all to new customers. The grandfathered unlimited plans are throttled at various levels. The levels are not carved in stone and can be changed at the discretion of the carrier.

[silentjudge]

Your point is invalid. AT&T Mobility does not offer unlimited plans at all to new customers. The grandfathered unlimited plans are throttled at various levels. The levels are not carved in stone and can be changed at the discretion of the carrier.

I think you missed the boat on this one. He's saying that even AT&T has even stopped offering unlimited and now are upfront about how much data you get.

Sent from my LG Nitro HD

[whacker]

I'm starting to get the impression over the course of several threads talking about ST and their dubious policies (i.e. limited/unlimited), that underneath it all, a certain number of posters are coming across with the attitude that, in general, a business should just be left alone to do whatever it wants, and not be held accountable in any way. Sort of an anti-regulatory contingent, if you will, which goes along with the tone of other issues you can sometimes hear some of these same posters comment on. So a certain amount of this pushback to common sense is falling along apparently political lines, unfortunately like a lot of things these days. But we're not going back to the days of anything goes used-car sales techniques. ("Don't you dare stifle business", and "damn these people looking for handouts"). You know what I'm talking about.

[silentjudge]

I'm starting to get the impression over the course of several threads talking about ST and their dubious policies (i.e. limited/unlimited), that underneath it all, a certain number of posters are coming across with the attitude that, in general, a business should just be left alone to do whatever it wants, and not be held accountable in any way. Sort of an anti-regulatory contingent, if you will, which goes along with the tone of other issues you can sometimes hear some of these same posters comment on. So a certain amount of this pushback to common sense is falling along apparently political lines, unfortunately like a lot of things these days. But we're not going back to the days of anything goes used-car sales techniques. ("Don't you dare stifle business", and "damn these people looking for handouts"). You know what I'm talking about.

What do you propose that ST users do about these dubious policies?

[cooter55]

not politics just difference of views.

[whacker]

It's going to take someone fairly articulate, with a lot of energy, to finally put a public stink on America Movil about this specific problem. Probably someone in NYC who is a lawyer and may or may not want to make a name for themselves, who knows how to argue this intelligently, and perhaps make the case to a govt. agency like the FCC or FTC, or maybe if he's got money in court directly (I don't know about class action; that may not be possible). I mean, look at the situation with McDonald's having to change all their menus in NYC to include calorie count, etc. This wasn't done spontaneously out of the goodness of their hearts. Now they're even doing that out here in the boonies where I live. This is just one example. The only reason it might take longer is because there's no potential children's health issue involved, just a seemingly complacent, uninformed tech-consuming public. But someone will take up the cause for some reason, you can bet on it. And it won't cost America Movil a thing; just state the policy, be forthcoming, end the monkeybusiness.

@ dougeebear:

I just read your post, and I think you've hit the eventual answer: It's going to be pressure on Walmart. They are the public face that must be protected, and that has some track record of reacting to issues on some level (I had kind of forgotten the Walmart/ST connection). So let's just kick back and see how long it takes and what enterprising individual gets it on enough to try and put the stink on Walmart about this!

[efparri]

I think you missed the boat on this one. He's saying that even AT&T has even stopped offering unlimited and now are upfront about how much data you get.

Sent from my LG Nitro HD

That is a separate issue from having limits on unlimited data plans. His argument all the time was that the carrier should tell you what the limits are. The post above by ChazzMatt is a red herring.

The carrier places no limits on tiered data plans. You can use as much data as you are able to purchase.

[whacker]

Exsqueeze me?

[efparri]

I was referring to the message to which I replied and to which silentjudge was commenting upon. I was not talking about your message.

[whacker]

Ah, I thank you very much. You're beautiful people.

[Brad Mullins]

This is how I see it. Yes Straight Talk is deceptive in claiming its unlimited but so is AT&T. Don't get me wrong, two wrongs don't make a right. I'm simply stating its common practice. On the bright side, at least ST doesn't cut off your service anymore. That's just blatantly wrong. Throttling isn't a good experience but at least you can still use your phone. If people want to fight ST and their unlimited claims, I more than welcome it. However I have no interest in starting such claims, the end result won't be you getting unlimited data, I am confident of that.

Now, why do I put up with this fake unlimited. Because $45 for unlimited talk/text and even 1GB of data is a good deal for me since I use under 1GB a month. Heck if it was 1500 minutes, 5000 texts, and 1GB I would still keep this plan. The amount of value I get for the $45 is still very high in that case compared to paying more on another carrier.

I think at the end of the day, you should look at if ST is a good fit for you and how much money you save. That's how you should determine if ST is right for you. If its not, just move on.

Sent from my LG Nitro HD

I think we all agree on the value, it's terrific and in all honesty I guess we should leave their policy alone -- because right now we can use a lot of data but if we keep complaining we will get no more than 1gb per month.

[-banned-]

here we go again you get unlimited data.have not heard on here anywhere where people have had there service disconnected.so you want a data number,ok here it goes.say the limit is 1gb and they advertise and say this.now you hit that limit 10 days into your service.guess what your data is cut off till you renew 20 days latter and your data is restored.unlike post pay if you go over the limit as shown above you get charged on a monthly bill.if you do not pay you loose your service.

now with st as it is you might not have blazing data speeds but you have data for the duration of the 30 days.which one do you want.my personal choice is a slower speed with data when i need it for the duration of the 30 days.just food for thought.

spacebar…??

[getyup]

I think we all agree on the value, it's terrific and in all honesty I guess we should leave their policy alone -- because right now we can use a lot of data but if we keep complaining we will get no more than 1gb per month.

It's not terrific, it's good, at best. As you see by pricing plans, voice minutes have become next to worthless in adding value to a service, and a very small percentage of smartphone users use voice first, data second, it's generally the other way around. With ST, you sacrifice support, which to many is a big deal. You also sacrifice things like carrier handset replacement (on BYOD), visual voicemail, LTE speeds, enhanced voicemail, enhanced, roaming, etc.

While from the outside, the deal looks like it blows away ATT, it doesn't. For those users who don't put value to those services it's great, but if any one of all of those are important to you, it devalues the overall appeal.

Personally I've stuck with it for 2 years because service has been ok, and I didn't care about the above because my phone didn't do 4G LTE, and the data worked. Lately data has become slow and unreliable at best, and the new phone won't get LTE on ST... so for those reasons I don't care if I have to pay 40% more, I want to take full advantage of the features of my new iPhone if it comes with LTE

[mch]

...
The carrier places no limits on tiered data plans. You can use as much data as you are able to purchase.

gophone can be a better deal for some, in particular folks who don't care about the huge bucket of voice minutes and want to be able to use data as they see fit.
$25/month + $25/GB less 10% discount

So you can always buy an extra GB if you need it rather than be subject to unknown, changing, and seemingly arbitrary policies.

I'm one of those people who prefers tiered data than "unlimited" with not well defined restrictions. If, for example, I want to listen to a few hours of streaming radio, I do, and am well aware of the cost, but don't need to worry about my account getting throttled just because I used 300MB of data in the course of a few hours.

Then again, I also use very little voice. Different things work well for different people.