Hacker News Reader

Comment by zdw | Hacker News Reader

Arstechnica had a recent article on this: http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/06/prepaid-mobile-phone...

I switched to Straight Talk on an iPhone 4 (AT&T GSM) right after my contract expired, with basically no problems. I'm a light data user (web/twitter/email/maps, no streaming music/video), so $45/month is a decent bargain for "unlimited" everything.

Now, if there was only a decent prepaid data-only plan for tethering. What I want is to buy a few gigs of transfer that doesn't expire (for at least a few months) and is tied to a USB stick. Nobody appears to sell this.

View on HN

I'm in the US and just did the same. Got an unlocked Galaxy Nexus and a pre-paid SIM from StraightTalk. $45 per month for all you can eat everything on ATT's network... I'm really sorry that I didn't know about this before since I've spent ~$100/month for the past 7 years with Verizon or ATT. I haven't found any issues with the coverage either. Mobile phone consumers in the US (at least, those I know) are really locked into the mentality of signing up for contracts. I'm glad to have broken free of that mindset.

Also, I do tether it for my daily train commute, but please don't tell them that.

Trying to get a handle on what one gives up with the ST plan. Here's what I've got: no domestic or int'l roaming, no visual voicemail, hard data cap at 2GB/30days, and no streaming services (Spotify, Pandora) over 3G. That cover it? Thanks.

My AT&T plan ended a couple of weeks ago. I was considering buying a Virgin Mobile iPhone and reselling it when the iPhone 5 came out, but this seems like a better way to bide my time.

Googling for things like "iPhone ATT prepaid" didn't yield good results. The power of a human recommendation is infinitely useful. And backed up by an Ars technica article is double win.

Thanks Zdw...

The main thing keeping me from switching from AT&T to ST right now is 1) the disconnect fee (1.4 yrs left on my contract and 2) iPhone 5, if unlocked like 4S, will probably be 4G and might not get as good of speeds on ST

This is how they luck us in, even though we'd truly prefer to be somewhere else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com