gale65

I just discovered this and of course did not even notice anything about it when I ordered my phone and sim. Is this true? No video or audio streaming at all? No youtube?? Has anyone been able to use either of these on a straight talk phone?

lennydude

Have no interest in being rude........... but you must read the TOS to see what your getting in to. (Terms of Service)

gale65

Yes I realize that. That's why I said I must have missed that part. I figured, for some reason, something like that would be a topic that had been discussed here but I didn't see anything here last night. I did see some discussion about it at other forums. I'll stick with ST unless/until they close my account and then I'll go to AT&T. Not unlimited but it'll work for me. I just wondered if anyone else did stream music/videos at all and I saw on other forums that some do, but just not too much.

xTye

They're VERY shady about it. They expect you to read the terms when it should say it out of the box. That's how they screw people.

That's why I switched to a better carrier.

UncleMike

Imagine that.

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xTye

Not everyone takes the time to read the long pages. It's something they should mention out of the box. They don't because then when they shut people off, they force the people to either move on or buy new service.

UncleMike

It's true that not everyone reads terms of services before agreeing to them, I believe the majority of people fall into this category. Deliberately being misleading or at all vague about the terms of service, only to cut people off for violating those terms, seems counter productive if they're looking to benefit from word of mouth. Wherever the terms of service are stated, if people are surprised by them after the fact, it results in unhappy customers and PR, and ultimately is not good for business.

Bren S.

The terms and services also come with every SIM card.

You can stream Pandora, you tube etc if you primarily use WiFi to do so . Which most people would do anyways.

They just don't want a ton of data used in short periods of time.
I've heard a good general guideline is stick to 100mb or less a day and you'll have no issue.

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Bren S.

+1

gale65

That's how much I used last MONTH on VM. But I didn't do much streaming or watching because the connection keeps petering out on me.

neutrontech

Eh, I realize it's against the TOS, but I stream a lot on my straight talk phone. And Pandora works just fine.

Bren S.

No one is questioning whether or not it works....and people are free to do as they please, but Straight Talk CAN and has bricked phones for TOS....excessive data use via streaming being the #1 reason cited. If that happens your phone becomes a paperweight as far as ST is concerned...so you'd be buying a new phone if you ever wanted ST again.

djedgarftw

I am using straight talk on my s3 and so far I have downloaded movies, teatherd to my ps3 and laptops, streamed music and videos and still haven't been cut off but the day they do I still have my att line I am not using at the moment with my s3

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gale65

Actually I was wondering, when I posted, if it worked. And bricked? Really?? Straight talk has the ability to long-distance brick my phone?

UncleMike

A carrier can't remotely brick your phone. But if they terminate your service your SIM will be useless. Your phone will be fine.

djedgarftw

Unless it is cdma

UncleMike

They can blacklist it - preventing it from being activated again, at least on the same carrier. Bricking a phone, to me, is something that possibly happens during the rooting/flashing process, making it unbootable - something completely unrelated to phone service, or whether a carrier will/won't activate a phone. I've never heard the term used in the context of trying to activate a phone.

djedgarftw

Well yea that's bricking but I'm talking about blacklisting I'm with you on the whole brick thing

Bren S.

Actually it is not only your SIM it is your phone itself.
So in other words in order to use ST again after a TOS you would need to buy a new phone.
And yes bricking is generally a term having to do with messing up rooting rendering the phone a paperweight basically....which after a TOS a paperweight is basically all it would be to ST as it won't be activated again.

UncleMike

I'm new to both Straight Talk and GSM, but I've only recently heard of GSM carriers doing anything to block the use of a specific phone, and only in the context of preventing the use of stolen phones. Is this blacklisting of the phone itself for violating the TOS something that's actually happened to someone, or is it just theoretical?

gale65

But just because you can't use a phone with ST doesn't mean it's bricked. I'm not sure what "after a TOS" means but how can ST know you're using the same phone? I don't remember them asking for any information from my phone.

Bren S.

You seriously think ST doesn't have specific phone info for your phone?

And I clarified what I meant by brick in my previous post.

gale65

I understand but it wouldn't necessarily be a paperweight. Maybe it couldn't be used with straight talk again but honestly, if ST cut me off, I wouldn't want to use them again anyway. And the phone could still be used with another carrier.

Bren S.

OK.

Kpowers

If you have the android zte merit you can watch youtube on it as well as listen to pandora

djedgarftw

You can but st says you cant which i dont get its kind of dumb

neutrontech

I never gave ST any info on my phone either, or my last one. Actually if I log into the website, it says I still have my original Nokia . I have just been swapping sim cards when I got something new.

Regardless, I have no 3g coverage around me, so data doesn't get used a whole lot. I don't see myself streaming video to my phone even if I did have 3g. But i would probably use Pandora.

makinnard

i can use pandora and youtube on my ST phone, no problems

as long as you use less that 2gb of data they don't say anything but when you are getting close the send you a message about data hogging.

they can even terminate your service which is BS but it is in the TOS

GalaxyNexus

Someone should file a lawsuit against ST. It's BS that they say "unlimited" data when you only get 2GBS

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djedgarftw

They should at least say 2gb at full speed and then throttled

valueforvalue

Wouldn't do any good to file a lawsuit its all in their own terms of service. Net10 is exactly the same I have a recorded conversation with with a tracphone rep where she openly admits that they throttle and that the plan isn't exactly unlimited.

howiesf

Try their other brand "Net10." After 18 yrs with Sprint , which is an ongoing nightmare, Net10 was suggested to me . So far I cannot believe the terrible level of service and then useless CSR reps, as well as their online forum. I'm loosing hair over this shit....

nbnesen

My wife and I were actually considering strongly about switching to ST. We are currently with VM and we are just tired of the service always cuttin in and out, especially on my evo v. In are area the signal is very weak. We get 3g, but only a bar or 2 at best. Just so I'm clear before switching, you can stream YouTube and so on even though in the terms of service it states they do not allow it? Just as long you do not use a lot of data? I don't use a lot of data as it is, I use WiFi as 3g is to slow for YouTube or a lot of other things. However sometimes while at work I may look up a video on YouTube and I like to browse the web a lot. Will we have issues? I doubt we even use a gig a month each.

Last edited by nbnesen; January 6th, 2013 at 10:44 AM.

DarkJedi

The ST TOS is left over from the days that people bought a ST GSM feature phone, took the SIM out and slapped it into their ThinkPad.

They haven't bothered to change their TOS because it nicely covers their behinds, should the underlying carrier have a fit and wish you gone.

Example: Paragraph 6 of their TOS (this is the paragraph everyone is scared about)... it says you can only download content from their Web Store. Umm... that is only for Feature Phones. Android phones can't access it. They are to use the Google Market (per their YouTube commercial for the Samsung Galaxy Precedent) and its 250,000 apps. -- which would be a TOS violation!

Also, think about it. Most of the phones come PREINSTALLED with apps that would violate the TOS. YouTube app for example!

Oh, and back to that Precedent commercial... they downloaded Angry Birds. Also a TOS violation! As per prohibited use iii) uploading, downloading or streaming of audio or video programming or games.

So, put on your brave face. Use Straight Talk in a manner you feel is truly fair to you and them (and legal). And if they come down from on high and turn off your service, come here, make your complaints, and then try another VMNO.

Remember, there are a huge number of us (even in these forums) that use Straight Talk. 99.9% of us violate their TOS daily and in a multitude of ways, yet still have service. Yes, you will hear of people getting throttled for the remainder of the month (mostly AT&T SIM users I believe)... maybe even terminated (don't know anyone personally that has though)... but that almost certainly was the action of the underlying carrier and not Straight Talk. Straight Talk just wants your money. They don't care what you do. The carrier wants their money. But, DOES care what you do.

Now back to hunting down the Rebel Alliance.

nbnesen

Cool, thank you for the help. Will a iPhone 3gs from att work?

nbnesen

?

DarkJedi

Straight Talk supports "bring your own phone" provided it is a GSM phone (yours is), *and* that the phone is unlocked. Is the iPhone 3GS you want to use unlocked?

DarkJedi

Can someone on ST who did "bring your own phone" check into something? I see a post on another thread, that they believed they could bring a T-Mobile phone to ST by just using a T-Mobile SIM. I don't think that is true, but as I'm a CDMA user, I can't answer with authority.

nbnesen

No I don't believe it is unlocked. What exactly does unlocked mean and how can you unlock a phone? If you bring your own phone, do they all have to be unlocked?

UncleMike

From Straight Talk's BYOP (Bring Your Own Phone) web site, step 1 is:
A locked phone will only work with a compatible SIM. An unlocked phone will work with any SIM (as long as the phone supports the frequencies use by the carrier). If you have a phone that is locked to AT&T you should order an AT&T compatible SIM from Straight Talk, and it will work fine. If you have a phone that is locked to T-Mobile you should order a T-Mobile compatible SIM from Straight Talk, and it will work fine. If you have an unlocked phone, you can order either SIM, and it will work fine.

It is possible to get a locked phone unlocked, but I've never had to do this, so I'm not sure how you would proceed if you wanted to do that.

nbnesen

Ok thanks. Answered my quastions well. But since an unlocked phone is not needed then no need to unlock it I suppose.

DarkJedi

We've had to unlock AT&T phones before. Went to the AT&T store to do so. As long as the phone's contract is complete, they will unlock it. But they love to drag their feet when doing so. We had to do this so we could take the phones overseas and pop in a local SIM for cheap local calls while traveling.

UncleMike

I should also point out that your choice of SIM will determine which underlying network you end up using. An AT&T compatible SIM will use AT&T's network, and a T-Mobile compatible SIM will use T-Mobile's network.

NYankee

I cant believe all of the crying about people being expected to review their contract.

hahahahahahahahaha.

Straight talk provides it to you for a reason. It's your customer agreement!

gale65

Thank you for your extremely helpful contribution to this discussion.

rudyy

One would think that when a company, Straight Talk in this instance, writes on its product, "Here's the Straight Talk promise in a nutshell: ... The unlimited nationwide plan gives you unlimited talk, text, data, and unlimited calls to 411 for 30 days fire $45."

There should be no need to read anything else because that's the deal, in an f-ing nutshell.

Well, it's bullshit.

gale65

Interesting thing I found out. We were shopping for a car and were at a toyota dealer. I asked if a certain vehicle had xm because that's one of the things I wanted. He said that Toyota is putting xm in less vehicles in favor of Entune, which would include being able to use pandora. Of course it has to be used with a smartphone and would use data. But if I want to use pandora I can just use the aux jack and use it on my phone.

At any rate, the car we did pick does have xm and it's new so not all of them are Entune only. And according to the website for Entune, only certain phones are compatible, which is odd. Only 2 android phones are listed.

lennydude

While I can understand where you are coming from..............I must disagree. What exactly do you expect to get for $45.00? Even the major carriers can not and do not put their entire TOS in a simple ad!

It is up to the individual to read and totally understand what he is purchasing PRIOR to making the commitment.

I for one am done talking about this subject. It seems to offend a very small minority that are unwilling for a variety of reasons to understand what they are purchasing. I for one have used ST for many, many months and have no issues whatsoever. I do however use a music device for music, a TV for watching TV, and pay my fair share for the data i do indeed use.

Lenny

nbnesen

I fully agree. Unlimited data means unlimited data... Not restricted data and if you use to much we will cut your service. Well thats not very unlimited now is it.

rosser725

+9000