International Phone On AT&T with Straighttalk

[zacaj]

Hi, I'm looking to buy a new cell phone, either:
Sony Xperia Z1
Motorola Moto X
Motorola Moto G LTE
Samsung Galaxy S4 (International)
and then activate it on straightalk. In my area, AT&T is the only carrier with good coverage, and I need 4G/LTE, so I wanted to verify: If I buy one of these phones off amazon, then buy a SIM Card off the straighttalk website, can I get the same AT&T 4G coverage/quality that I would get if I got a 2 year contract with AT&T?

Also, the straighttalk website is a bit confusing:

I'd assume I'd want to select unlocked phone, but what network does that run on? AT&T? TMobile? Would I get coverage on both? (Roaming?)

 

[cgardnervt]

Hi, I'm looking to buy a new cell phone, either:
Sony Xperia Z1
Motorola Moto X
Motorola Moto G
Samsung Galaxy S4 (International)
and then activate it on straightalk. In my area, AT&T is the only carrier with good coverage, and I need 4G/LTE, so I wanted to verify: If I buy one of these phones off amazon, then buy a SIM Card off the straighttalk website, can I get the same AT&T 4G coverage/quality that I would get if I got a 2 year contract with AT&T?

Also, the straighttalk website is a bit confusing:
http://zacaj.com/screenshots/2014-05-31_21-29-01.png
I'd assume I'd want to select unlocked phone, but what network does that run on? AT&T? TMobile? Would I get coverage on both? (Roaming?)

Moto G does NOT support 4G. Moto G 4GLTE does. But that is not out until June 2nd or so.

 

[zacaj]

Sorry, yes, I know. I forgot to add the 4GLTE to the link.

 

[cgardnervt]

Sorry, yes, I know. I forgot to add the 4GLTE to the link.

Sorry about that then! If your on a budget I'd get the Moto G 4G LTE then. Great bang for the buck! Your coverage will be the same as a Postpaid account from my understanding as well. (To answer the first question!) But I'd check out Cricket wireless too. Might be a better fit and people same the CS is a lot better than ST and they are owned by att. (Not that it matters to much but I'd certainly consider it.)

 

[raptir]

After you click through with the "Unlocked GSM phone" you will see that they offer you AT&T compatible SIM cards. You only end up on T-Mobile's network if you select T-Mobile compatible phone.

The coverage is similar but not identical because you do not get any roaming. That said, AT&T's native coverage is pretty good so it's unlikely that you would end up in any of the few areas they have roaming agreements but no native network. Quality is a slightly different story. All data on Straight Talk goes through a proxy which introduces some latency and reduces your overall speed.

Cricket is a great option now that they are part of AT&T and use their network but I had some customer service issues with them since the switch. I'm assuming it was due to the transition and I will probably give them another shot in a couple of months. The latency is typically better because they have more proxy servers across the country than Straight Talk but they do limit you to 8Mbps on LTE.

 

[zacaj]

Do you know of any way to see a map with where I'd get coverage with AT&T Roaming but not on StraightTalk? Does Cricket have roaming? (these things are annoyingly hard to find :/)

 

[raptir]

Do you know of any way to see a map with where I'd get coverage with AT&T Roaming but not on StraightTalk? Does Cricket have roaming? (these things are annoyingly hard to find :/)

Cricket doesn't have roaming.

The only way you'd be able to compare would be to look at an AT&T coverage map vs a Cricket coverage map. I don't think Straight Talk has coverage maps, or at least I can't find them on their site.

 

[sinimsdp]

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...6sig2%3DjjGSH0ocxzMdF8RlrzOZZw&token=vI5LTj8v

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk

 

[raptir]

Service Area

Sent from my XT1053 using Tapatalk

Ah, I hadn't been able to get that to go through before, but it worked this time. Still, their map seems to just show "service" vs "no service," while Cricket's map shows LTE vs HSPA ("4G") vs 3G vs 2G. And both are AT&T MVNOs with no roaming so the coverage should be identical.

https://www.cricketwireless.com/map.html

 

[cgardnervt]

Ah, I hadn't been able to get that to go through before, but it worked this time. Still, their map seems to just show "service" vs "no service," while Cricket's map shows LTE vs HSPA ("4G") vs 3G vs 2G. And both are AT&T MVNOs with no roaming so the coverage should be identical.

https://www.cricketwireless.com/map.html

+1! Just cricket has better CS from my understanding.