Straight Talk has stopped selling AT&T SIM cards...

NoxTek

NoxTek

The Geek Redneck
Joined
May 27, 2002
Messages
9,300
As of a week ago Straight Talk has dropped the ability to order AT&T based SIM cards from their website and have restructured their website removing most places where the AT&T network was mentioned for their BYOP plan.

Straight Talk is pretty much mum on the subject, giving a canned response:

"Straight Talk Wireless is not selling SIM cards that are compatible with AT&T devices at this time. We’ll bring them back as soon as we can and will work to keep you up to date on this issue"

Walmart is still selling the Straight Talk AT&T SIM cards on their website though, so if you've been thinking about getting one now may be the time.

NOTE that orders for the SIM card + starter air time at Walmart are being randomly rejected and refunded - orders for the AT&T SIM card by itself seem to be still being fulfilled as of right now.


Just thought I'd give a heads up to anyone who's been thinking of switching to Straight Talk (or thinking of switching from the T-Mobile side to the AT&T side).
 
Indeed, picked up one myself, the wife is switching in May when her Verizon contract is up. I spread the word around my office, already had 3 of my co workers get the SIIM from Walmart lol. Grab em while you can!
 
Interesting news. Been on ST since the whole nokia e71 sim card swapping dealio. Would hate to see them be t-mo only.
 
Will have to grab the AT&T sim card tomorrow, thanks for the heads up.
 
If true, this is going to be a huge blow for ST. Their AT&T side of the network offers far more coverage and better coverage in more areas than the T-Mobile network. I wonder if this is either due to AT&T pulling out, jacking rates, or ST being happy with the pace of TMO's network deployment?
 
Medion said:
If true, this is going to be a huge blow for ST. Their AT&T side of the network offers far more coverage and better coverage in more areas than the T-Mobile network. I wonder if this is either due to AT&T pulling out, jacking rates, or ST being happy with the pace of TMO's network deployment?
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This was inevitable. With the rise of Straight Talk, it was only a matter of time until ATT noticed the poaching of subscribers that it caused. Why let them have a discount through a 3rd party service when you can just charge them more up front?

T-Mobile's coverage/network is far inferior to ATT. Without ATT, there would be no way for me, personally, to switch.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
This was inevitable. With the rise of Straight Talk, it was only a matter of time until ATT noticed the poaching of subscribers that it caused. Why let them have a discount through a 3rd party service when you can just charge them more up front?

T-Mobile's coverage/network is far inferior to ATT. Without ATT, there would be no way for me, personally, to switch.
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If they didn't sign a deal with Wal Mart this most likely wouldn't of happen. Speculation aside the AT&T SIM card can be from a prior ATT phone or does it have to be purchased through ST? If so then this will allow for future ATT/ST customers, no?
 
Fawwwk, my contract is up in March and I was just going to wait.. now I have to go to Wal-Mart and grab what I can ASAP :eek:
 
Blue Falcon said:
As of a week ago Straight Talk has dropped the ability to order AT&T based SIM cards from their website and have restructured their website removing most places where the AT&T network was mentioned for their BYOP plan.

Straight Talk is pretty much mum on the subject, giving a canned response:

"Straight Talk Wireless is not selling SIM cards that are compatible with AT&T devices at this time. We’ll bring them back as soon as we can and will work to keep you up to date on this issue"

Walmart is still selling the Straight Talk AT&T SIM cards on their website though, so if you've been thinking about getting one now may be the time.

NOTE that orders for the SIM card + starter air time at Walmart are being randomly rejected and refunded - orders for the AT&T SIM card by itself seem to be still being fulfilled as of right now.


Just thought I'd give a heads up to anyone who's been thinking of switching to Straight Talk (or thinking of switching from the T-Mobile side to the AT&T side).
Click to expand...

I bought one a little over a week ago from walmart. Have not activated it yet, am I too assume I will be unable to do so? Or as long as you have the ATT sim you are GTG?
 
ComputerBox34 said:
This was inevitable. With the rise of Straight Talk, it was only a matter of time until ATT noticed the poaching of subscribers that it caused. Why let them have a discount through a 3rd party service when you can just charge them more up front?

T-Mobile's coverage/network is far inferior to ATT. Without ATT, there would be no way for me, personally, to switch.
Click to expand...

That depends on where you are, possibly in your region...
here boston area and far north up the coast and inland I get pegged HSPA+ speeds 99% of the time and wouldn't switch to ATT if it was free.
 
ComputerBox34 said:
T-Mobile's coverage/network is far inferior to ATT. Without ATT, there would be no way for me, personally, to switch.
Click to expand...

Yes and No. AT&T has far more extensive rural coverage, however, much of that is still limited to GPRS and Edge. Not all rural areas offer 3G or better (in fact, most don't). Still, it is coverage, and that's better than nothing.

In urban areas, it's back and forth. In Shreveport/Bossier (where I just moved from, population of under 200k), AT&T offers HSPA+ and I'd be able to do speed tests up to 7.2mbps. T-Mobile was limited to Edge as they had not yet rolled out proper 3G in that area. However, driving down the two main strips during morning/evening rush hour or lunch would result in full-bars 3G/faux-g on AT&T, but no way in hell to use any data. Phone calls? Yea, in your dreams. On T-Mobile, your data was slow, but it worked.

Now in the Seattle area, forget about it. AT&T is nothing but dropped calls and data speeds capped around 1.5-2mb. T-Mobile is far superior up here.

Yes, AT&T has superior coverage, but only if you're talking about total land area covered. If you're talking about quality of coverage, that's area-dependent.
 
Medion said:
Yes and No. AT&T has far more extensive rural coverage, however, much of that is still limited to GPRS and Edge. Not all rural areas offer 3G or better (in fact, most don't). Still, it is coverage, and that's better than nothing.

In urban areas, it's back and forth. In Shreveport/Bossier (where I just moved from, population of under 200k), AT&T offers HSPA+ and I'd be able to do speed tests up to 7.2mbps. T-Mobile was limited to Edge as they had not yet rolled out proper 3G in that area. However, driving down the two main strips during morning/evening rush hour or lunch would result in full-bars 3G/faux-g on AT&T, but no way in hell to use any data. Phone calls? Yea, in your dreams. On T-Mobile, your data was slow, but it worked.

Now in the Seattle area, forget about it. AT&T is nothing but dropped calls and data speeds capped around 1.5-2mb. T-Mobile is far superior up here.

Yes, AT&T has superior coverage, but only if you're talking about total land area covered. If you're talking about quality of coverage, that's area-dependent.
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I spend a lot of time in NJ suberbs. They get 0 service from T-Mobile

At least I get something with ATT
 
You can go to both websites and look at coverage, but pretty much the metropolitan cities don't have to worry; AT&T and T Mobile are great in Los Angeles. What does suck is less options and less competition, but let's hope that Wal-Mart can just be the secret back door.
 
I just got my Nexus 4, switching from an older phone that took a full size SIM and I had to cut my AT&T full size down to mico-SIM size because straight talk wouldn't sell me a micro SIM. Kind of a pain but it turned out fine so I guess they saved me $15 by forcing me to cut my SIM.
 
Reports coming in saying that ATT is no longer allowed ST to sell their SIMs.

Don't know what this means for current customers
 
CHANG3D said:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/0...-sold-out-of-att-sim-cards-online-dont-panic/

No need for alarm. They are just sold out.
Click to expand...

It's already pretty much been established that the guy who wrote this 'article' is full of shit and just regurgitating what Straight Talk's canned response says.

From the limited information that's come out of this mess the general consensus is that America Movil's (Straight Talk's parent company) contract term came to an end with AT&T, and AT&T wanted WAY more cash to renew the contract and allow Straight Talk to continue adding new devices (read SIM cards) to their network.


As far as the existing ST AT&T SIM cards out there: There is no word for sure but I highly doubt that there will be some sort of a mass conversion of current ST AT&T customers to T-Mobile, that would just be insane. I'm sure there are provisions in place for the current crop of customers to go along on their merry way using the AT&T cards. Those of us who are rushing to buy the remaining AT&T Sim cards from Walmart are doing so in the hope that they can still be activated, and from what I've seen they can be with no problem.

Personally I've been on the fence about switching from my $30 a month T-Mobile plan (100min/5GB HSPA+ data) to Straight Talk's AT&T side. I love love love my T-Mobile service but I'm just tired of not getting a signal inside buildings and out in east Texas. T-Mobile has almost no data signal in east Texas, relying on old Cellular One towers they aquired years ago for basic voice service only. I travel out there every weekend and from what I've seen on AT&T's coverage maps there is definitely more data coverage out there.
 
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You guys do know that AT&T owns like 10% of America Movil, the parent company of Tracfone, the parent of Straight Talk?

If anything, they will just raise the rate.

This whole alarmist bs is hilarious.
 
Glad my girlfriend ordered a spare a few weeks back.

It would be nice to hear some sort of official response from ST about whats going on. The price is nice and all, but their customer service blows (really? Facebook for customer support? f that...)
 
CHANG3D said:
You guys do know that AT&T owns like 10% of America Movil, the parent company of Tracfone, the parent of Straight Talk?

If anything, they will just raise the rate.

This whole alarmist bs is hilarious.
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Wow! A whole 10% :rolleyes:
 
I dropped AT&T like a bad habit 2 months ago and switched to ST...$45.00 a month VS $105.00a month...not really a tough decision....so what does this mean for existing ST customers using the AT&T network?...are we safe, or are we going to need to switch providers?
 
Crosshairs said:
I dropped AT&T like a bad habit 2 months ago and switched to ST...$45.00 a month VS $105.00a month...not really a tough decision....so what does this mean for existing ST customers using the AT&T network?...are we safe, or are we going to need to switch providers?
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure existing Straight Talk customers who are using the AT&T network are safe. I can't imagine the chaos and bad press that would ensue if Straight Talk actually forced existing customers to switch networks. They'd have to mail out new SIM cards en masse, teach people what to do, etc, etc.... the press wouldn't be good for AT&T either.

I'm thinking that AT&T said 'Hey, if you want to keep adding devices to our network you're gonna have to pay lots more' and America Movil said 'Uhhh... no'.

Net10 (also owned by parent company America Movil) is also removing the ability to get AT&T SIMs over the last few days. I haven't checked on Simple Mobile or the other America Movil owned MVNOs yet...

AT&T owning a 10% stake in shares of the company means very little ... that kind of stuff happens all the time. It MAY be different if they had like a majority stake or something.

But who knows, the Straight Talk robots might actually be telling the truth and they could just be 'out of stock' of the AT&T SIM cards. It's hard to believe that they would make large changes to their website removing the mention of AT&T just because they are out of stock...
 
Ordered a few SIMs from Walmart.com, shipped today. I'm getting in just in case :)
 
diredesire said:
Ordered a few SIMs from Walmart.com, shipped today. I'm getting in just in case :)
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I had to do that as well. I visited 4 different Wal-Marts in the area here and they were all out of AT&T sims for ST. Ordered 2 via website and got my shipping notice today.

Still though it makes me wonder how tough they are going to be on the AT&T sim folks going forward.

* /headsmack - I just looked at the tracking....they shipped it from literally the next city over and charged me $6 shipping. I could have gone and got it. I thought their warehouse was in Benton, AR?
 
I ordered one as well. I'm not going to activate it, but keep it as backup and see what happens. I forgot what info Straight Talk asks for when you're porting your number over. Can someone please remind me what the info is so I can write it down in case I lose my phone and SIM card. I'd hate to have to get a new number and be stuck on tmobile's network.
 
ShoeyPeachew said:
I ordered one as well. I'm not going to activate it, but keep it as backup and see what happens. I forgot what info Straight Talk asks for when you're porting your number over. Can someone please remind me what the info is so I can write it down in case I lose my phone and SIM card. I'd hate to have to get a new number and be stuck on tmobile's network.
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Account Number, PIN number, name and address associated with the number you're porting.... and obviously the phone number you want to port. :p

That's whebn you're porting a number from another provider into Straight Talk.... if you're just switching from a ST T-Mobile SIM to an AT&T SIM, it's really easy. You just go to the 'Activate' link on the ST website and choose 'Transfer from an existing Straight Talk device'.
 
I'm debating on whether or not to pick on up or not. My contract with Verizon is up in a year and I really don't think I'm staying with them after that. Whats the current trend with sims? Do micro sims seem to be the new thing or should I just pick one of each up to be safe.
 
ChedWick said:
I'm debating on whether or not to pick on up or not. My contract with Verizon is up in a year and I really don't think I'm staying with them after that. Whats the current trend with sims? Do micro sims seem to be the new thing or should I just pick one of each up to be safe.
Click to expand...

MicroSIM is the new standard.
Full size SIMs (aka miniSIM) are long gone.

If anything, nanoSIM phones like the iPhone 5 might start coming out, but right now there is none. You can just cut it and use an adapter later on.
 
Medion said:
Yes and No. AT&T has far more extensive rural coverage, however, much of that is still limited to GPRS and Edge. Not all rural areas offer 3G or better (in fact, most don't). Still, it is coverage, and that's better than nothing.

In urban areas, it's back and forth. In Shreveport/Bossier (where I just moved from, population of under 200k), AT&T offers HSPA+ and I'd be able to do speed tests up to 7.2mbps. T-Mobile was limited to Edge as they had not yet rolled out proper 3G in that area. However, driving down the two main strips during morning/evening rush hour or lunch would result in full-bars 3G/faux-g on AT&T, but no way in hell to use any data. Phone calls? Yea, in your dreams. On T-Mobile, your data was slow, but it worked.

Now in the Seattle area, forget about it. AT&T is nothing but dropped calls and data speeds capped around 1.5-2mb. T-Mobile is far superior up here.

Yes, AT&T has superior coverage, but only if you're talking about total land area covered. If you're talking about quality of coverage, that's area-dependent.
Click to expand...

bingo and with T-mobile getting a large chunk of spectrum use from AT&T due to the deal fall through it's not going to remain that way much longer...

For those of you buying sim cards good luck with that......
 
Blue Falcon said:
Account Number, PIN number, name and address associated with the number you're porting.... and obviously the phone number you want to port. :p

That's whebn you're porting a number from another provider into Straight Talk.... if you're just switching from a ST T-Mobile SIM to an AT&T SIM, it's really easy. You just go to the 'Activate' link on the ST website and choose 'Transfer from an existing Straight Talk device'.
Click to expand...

Thank-you Brue Reader. Red Reader out.
 
Got my 2 ATT compatible sims today from Walmart. Not sure if they're still available. I seem to be set for a while.
 
Straight Talk ATT been great for me on my rooted Note 2. Fast enough for me, and no LTE drain. Best battery so far, was 27 hours on a full charge to red 10%, with a massive 8hours OnScreen time. My old Galaxy Nexus never got close to that.
 
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