Comparing Straight Talk and Verizon Options in Miami

Recently, I have been talking to Grant, a reader from the Miami area. Grant has an iPhone 5 he bought from Straight Talk. He contacted me to ask me about why he wasn’t getting 4 LTE data with his phone, and was wondering if we had any options to get faster data.

As you may or may not know, when you buy the iPhone 5 from Straight Talk, it uses their 3G verizon network. Even though this is an LTE phone, it will only has 3G service. Straight Talk’s Verizon network does not support 4G LTE at this time. In the past, Verizon did not let any prepaid wireless company use their 4G LTE network, even Verizon’s own prepaid service didn’t offer 4G LTE until recently.

Grant and I discussed his options. One option was to switch to Verizon Prepaid that now has 4G LTE. See Verizon Prepaid Now Offers 4G LTE!. Grant actually went to check this out this option. The clerk in the store told him he couldn’t activate his Straight Talk Verizon iPhone 5 on Verizon prepaid, because the it was using a different “carrier version”. I am not sure I believed that, the carrier version usually updates itself to match the network you are on. But for whatever the actually reason, this option wasn’t going to be straight forward as they said he couldn’t sign up.

When Verizon told Grant is phone wouldn’t work, he did an experiment. He found a friend with a Verizon LTE phone and borrowed their SIM. He put the SIM into his Straight Talk iPhone 5. It worked. He also ran a speed test. Very impressive results. These are the kind of speeds I have heard about the Verizon network.

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We also discussed the idea of transferring his line from Straight Talk’s Verizon network, to Straight Talk’s ATT network. You do this by getting a Straight Talk ATT SIM and going through a few steps on the Straight Talk web site. His iPhone 5 is actually compatible with the ATT network. However, its only compatible with ATT’s 4G HSPA+ network, not ATT’s 4G LTE network. That is a limitation of the Verizon iPhone 5. So in this case, it comes down to is speed difference between the ATT 4G HSPA+ network and the Verizon 3G network great enough to justify the switch.

Then, Grant did something that surprised me. He bought a used ATT iPhone 4 and activated a second line using Straight Talk’s ATT SIM. He ran some speed tests and the results were impressive. Faster then Straight Talk’s Verizon network.

Hey Bob, hope you are doing well. I still have my iPhone 5 on Straight
Talk’s Verizon 3G Network. About a week ago, I traded my older Samsung
Galaxy S3 Mini that I had for an iPhone 4 on Craigslist. It is a GSM
model and has a Straight Talk AT&T sim card in it. I was shocked to
see that my speedtest results for the Straight Talk AT&T iPhone 4 on
3G were almost 3 times as fast as my Straight Talk Verizon iPhone 5 on
3G. The average results for the ST iPhone 4 using AT&T 3G are
5.50-6.00 mbps down and 0.90-1.20 mbps up. And my average results for
my ST iPhone 5 using Verizon 3G are 2.20-2.70 mbps down and 0.70-1.10
mbps up.

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While most people wouldn’t go through the time and expense to try this, he did.

Grant also reported to me that the iOS 8 update, seemed to improve the speeds he was seeing using his Straight Talk iPhone 5 on the Verizon network. I had not heard that before, and we don’t know why, but it’s a heck of a lot nicer than hearing that it got slower. Believe me, I hear about it when iPhone updates make Straight Talk’s data service slower.

At the end of September, Grant told me he moved the Straight Talk ATT SIM from his iPhone 4s to his Straight Talk iPhone 5. He reported a 3X speed improvement! And that is without getting 4G LTE!. That is a huge difference. It Looks like a 3x improvement in speed from the iPhone 4 and a 7x improvement over the Straight Talk’s Verizon network. We are still not sure why he is

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Finally,  Grant recently sent me this update.

Yes my iPhone 5 is still active on ST’s Verizon. Whenever there is no SIM in my phone, it always goes back to TFW 3G. I like to mess around with it, putting different SIM cards to see what it will do and what works the best. Even though when I use the ST at&t SIM and get download speeds up to 12mbps, I don’t see any difference in speed when I take the SIM out and it goes back to getting between 2.50 and 2.70mbps on Verizon 3G. The speed test shows a pretty big jump in speeds, but when I’m browsing the internet, facebook, watching videos and other things, there is no difference at all. They both run fast.

My friend was over the other day and he has Verizon LTE service on his phone (he is on a contract with Verizon). I put his SIM in my phone and it was crazy speeds. The highest I’ve ever seen.

 

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Now, I can’t make any claims based on one person’s experience. But at least for Grant, he now knows that the Straight Talk ATT network is faster than the Straight Talk verizon network with his Straight Talk iPhone in his area. Despite the difference in speeds between the two networks, he reports that both services are fast enough for his needs.

Thanks to Grant for taking the time to share all this information with us.

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