I've been a Sprint customer (Galaxy Nexus - purchased on contract from Sprint years ago) for quite some time due to a grandfathered discounted plan. My phone is getting old/slow/unbearably laggy (even after a hard reset) and I'm done with Sprint's crappy network and spotty 25-200 kb/s network speeds. I also am not a fan of the concept of bending over and taking all 10 inches of Verizon's bill each month for use of their better network... so now I'm considering Straight Talk.
I currently have a Galaxy Nexus and I went through the Straighttalk BYOP process at the Straighttalk website yesterday... seemed to go smoothly until I had to dial ##code# to finish the process and instead got an error message about an invalid code. This led me to their customer support live chat gal who was helpful enough to tell me... to keep trying for a day then call them. I mentioned to her that I would like to be on the Verizon network... and she told me that she has no control over that and "the system" automatically assigns the network.... all this accumulates into a few questions that I hope someone out there in the aether can either help me answer... or ridicule my ignorance over:
0. Does anyone have an idea of what is going on with my "code"? It may be useful to call the tech support people after I have an idea of what they need to do to fix it.
1. With my BYOP Sprint Galaxy Nexus phone (it's technically a GSM/CDMA phone, but the sim card slot is missing), if I transfer it to StraightTalk... will I have a choice not to be automatically assigned back to the Sprint network?
2. I've read vague allusions to Verizon fed Straighttalk plans not offering 4g speeds, and only allowing 3g speeds. Is this true? If somehow I was able to get on the Verizon network with my phone, would it be perma-throttled to 3g (which is sadly still about 10x faster than I currently average with Sprint)?
3. I'm planning on getting a Nexus 6 (when it is available for sale to us) and this phone is available on the the big 4 networks. After getting this phone, would it also be a gamble of whether it gets assigned to the Sprint or Verizon network if I go CDMA vs GSM?
4. Should I just get some other phone and "settle" with the AT&T network (coverage is worse than Verizon... and I'd probably only notice the difference for about 10 days a year while traveling)?
5. If the recommendation is to just get an AT&T Straighttalk phone/plan, understanding my preference for a plain vanilla android system, what are the requirements for a phone which will work with AT&T's fastest data network option? (I assume that is what LTE means)
6. If your goals were to get good coverage, good data speeds, an upper-end newer pure android phone, what combination of phone + Straighttalk plan would you target?
I currently have a Galaxy Nexus and I went through the Straighttalk BYOP process at the Straighttalk website yesterday... seemed to go smoothly until I had to dial ##code# to finish the process and instead got an error message about an invalid code. This led me to their customer support live chat gal who was helpful enough to tell me... to keep trying for a day then call them. I mentioned to her that I would like to be on the Verizon network... and she told me that she has no control over that and "the system" automatically assigns the network.... all this accumulates into a few questions that I hope someone out there in the aether can either help me answer... or ridicule my ignorance over:
0. Does anyone have an idea of what is going on with my "code"? It may be useful to call the tech support people after I have an idea of what they need to do to fix it.
1. With my BYOP Sprint Galaxy Nexus phone (it's technically a GSM/CDMA phone, but the sim card slot is missing), if I transfer it to StraightTalk... will I have a choice not to be automatically assigned back to the Sprint network?
2. I've read vague allusions to Verizon fed Straighttalk plans not offering 4g speeds, and only allowing 3g speeds. Is this true? If somehow I was able to get on the Verizon network with my phone, would it be perma-throttled to 3g (which is sadly still about 10x faster than I currently average with Sprint)?
3. I'm planning on getting a Nexus 6 (when it is available for sale to us) and this phone is available on the the big 4 networks. After getting this phone, would it also be a gamble of whether it gets assigned to the Sprint or Verizon network if I go CDMA vs GSM?
4. Should I just get some other phone and "settle" with the AT&T network (coverage is worse than Verizon... and I'd probably only notice the difference for about 10 days a year while traveling)?
5. If the recommendation is to just get an AT&T Straighttalk phone/plan, understanding my preference for a plain vanilla android system, what are the requirements for a phone which will work with AT&T's fastest data network option? (I assume that is what LTE means)
6. If your goals were to get good coverage, good data speeds, an upper-end newer pure android phone, what combination of phone + Straighttalk plan would you target?
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
