[Porsche-O-Phile]

I use Straight Talk with my iPhone 4S. Been using since the day AT&T contract expired a year and a half ago. Kicked them to the curb the first chance I could and I've been living blissfully contract-free and much less expensively ever since. My monthly bill with AT&T was around $100-$110 and it's now $45 for "unlimited" talk, text & data. In practice I know the data is actually limited to about 2GB a month which most people will never come close to (I only did once and it's because I tethered the crap out of it and used it to download a bunch of stuff on my laptop, which you're really not supposed to do).

Functionally, it's been pretty much flawless. I did experiment with Simple Mobile for a month and it was terrible comparatively, so I went back to ST. ST works fine just about everywhere (including the Caribbean and FL and TX and remote parts of Pennsylvania and New England and other places I've been in the last few months).

I'd recommend it. Why anyone continues to pay market rate for the major carriers' rates is completely unknown to me. Those guys are raping people blind and it really doesn't take much to be able to sidestep it. The only caveats I'd give is that it can be a little bit quirky to set up depending on what phone you have and you have to be at least somewhat technologically competent (know or be able to learn what an APN setting is, find it in your phone's configuration menu and make a few easy edits). For a while it required iPhone users to jailbreak, run a Cydia app like TetherMe and edit the APN settings but now it (I think) natively supports ST APN settings (when I upgraded to iOS7 it worked right away before I got around to re-jailbreaking). Most phones have the APN settings easily accessible in the configuration menu but its hidden on the iPhone which makes things a bit more difficult although once you know how to do it, it's easy and very reliable.

I'm not sure about using ST SIM cards with newer phones like the iPhone 5, 5S and 5C which take "nano" sims as opposed to "micro" SIMs. I use an iPhone 4S and really don't see any compelling reason to "upgrade". The new phones (particularly the Samsung Galaxys) are obnoxiously large but I know a lot of folks like them. I personally hate anything larger than the iPhone 4. Nice, compact, light, etc. Your mileage may vary. Anyway the newer phones take the "nano" SIMs - my understanding is that you can cut down a micro SIM (such as you buy right out of the box from ST) to fit a nano profile but I've not done this and it seems a little bit risky to me (if you mess it up you could be out a few bucks for a new SIM). I believe there are people using ST with nano-SIM phones though, so it's been done. I'm sure at some point ST will offer nano SIMs, maybe they do already - haven't checked. Every one I've ever seen is a micro profile out of the box.

I say go for it. I have no love or loyalty for the telco companies that are just smugly and blatantly ripping people off. Make the switch and liberate yourself I say. And I've no affiliation, just a public service message.