Straight Talk Review

Introduction

I was a Straight Talk customer from March 2012 to June 2016. At first, I chose Straight Talk as a prepaid carrier for the service coverage and cost. They were ideal for simple preferences, but became less efficient as those changed over time.

Signal Strength (6/10)

My previous prepaid carriers, Boost Mobile and Metro PCS, had virtually no signal on post in Fort Bliss. The signal quality was strong on post, even better than some major carriers such as Sprint and AT&T in the barracks, and sometimes in the most random locations such as the middle of the desert or atop a mountain in New Mexico. Like who came up with the idea to place a tower in the middle of a desert anyways? Does not strike me as a popular tourist attraction. The reception was usually less reliable in rural areas, which was expected, given that few carriers had towers in those regions. When I moved to Gainesville, FL, the signal strength dwindled dramatically. At my house, calls would drop repeatedly from different people despite having a strong signal. MMS messages would sometimes take half an hour to load. Sometimes they would crash the operating system and I would have to restart the phone. My parent's neighborhood down the street and pretty much anywhere besides campus and major shopping centers were either dead zones or had poor signal strength.

Pricing (7.5/10)

What caught my attention was the $30 monthly prepaid plan. The 1000 minutes / 1000 text / 2 GB data plan suited my budget and simple feature phone needs at the time. However, this plan became considerably less desirable when I upgraded to a smartphone. The $30 plan was exclusive to feature phones, meaning that one must upgrade to the $45 unlimited plan to use a smartphone. Once I upgraded, Straight Talk slowly became less appealing, because there were numerous other providers delivering strong signals in the area for similar prices. Once I moved to Gainesville, it simply did not make sense to pay the same amount for less.

Customer Service (5/10)

In the beginning, the phone support was severely lacking. Quite frankly, there was none. In fact, it was so bad that I had to find roundabout methods such as contacting the billing department to be transferred to technical support. This was no longer a issue two years (and perhaps several dozen complaints from other customers) later, but this did not make resolving problems much easier. The best way that I can describe my general experience with Straight Talk customer support representatives is friendly and attentive, but generally uninformed. For instance, I was once passed through five representative and two feature phones before learning to configure APN settings on my own. The representatives repeatedly refused to provide the network access codes for recurring issues with my phone, claiming that the information was confidential. I must have contacted customer support three times within a year for the same problem. My old phone number was lost when I moved to Gainesville because the representative insisted that I did not have service because it needed to be changed. The issue was not resolved until my home of record was updated. This is not to say that I did not have positive experiences with customer support; instead that I have mixed feelings about the quality of their training.

Conclusion (6.16/10)

In summary, I believe Straight Talk is best for people looking to save money that are content with feature phones. It is may be viable option for smartphone users in urban service areas, although this will really depend on coverage maps. I would not recommend Straight Talk to those who are fond of stellar customer service, living in more rural areas, or access to better alternatives.