Switching to Net10 Wireless with the Galaxy SII

A reader CMC commented..

We are not very tech savy but have purchased two unlocked new Samsung Galaxy SII phones. My contract with ATT is up and going to switch to Net 10. I’ve purchased two Net 10 sim cards from Radio Shack and when the phones come I hope we can work thru the process. I am confused about the MMS and the other data info. Do you think with the new sim cards there will be a prob with voice data? I’m thinking that means using Siri or equivalent of? We’re looking forward to texting by voice. I’ve tried to contact the customer service with Net 10 and you cannot get thru to them without a serial number on phone and or sim card so we will see. We would like to keep our phone number but if it means getting out of a two year contract we will change numbers. Any tips will be appreciated.. Thanks for your help.

Hi CMC,
Thank you for taking the time to check out smartphonematters.com and comment. I think its a great idea that you are going to make the move to prepaid and I wouldn’t worry too much about not being tech saavy enough. I think you can handle it.

To try and address your other concerns. When you put your Net10 SIM cards in your Galaxy SII, your voice and SMS text messages should work fine. To get your data and MMS picture messaging to work, you may need to go into the settings and enter what’s called your Access Point Name or APN. On many modern cell phones and cell phone networks this happens automatically, but sometimes you need to enter it manually. It’s not that hard, you just need to type in some values carefully. What makes it tricky, is if the phone doesn’t show the appropriate settings screen to enter the values. This is currently the case for Net10 customers using the AT&T SIM with the iPhone. It’s a pain in the butt, but mant people put up with it to save $40 bucks a month.

When you move to Net10, are you planning to use the ATT or T-Mobile SIM? You want to choose the network that works well in the areas you use your phone and the network that is most compatible with your phone.

You mentioned text by voice. I am not sure what you are referring to. Are you talking about a feature in Android, on the Galaxy SII, or a third party app you want to use like Sonalight’s Text By Voice in the Google Play App store?  Let me know, I would like to understand a little bit more about what you want to do with your phone.

A few more points, when your ATT contract is up, you don’t need to immediately switch. Are you using your ATT SIMs in your Galaxy SII phones right now? If they are unlocked, you should be able to move the SIMs over and see how good ATT is on the phone.  You can then move your service to Net10 one at a time to see if you like it.

I use Net10 and it works well for me. It is way cheaper than AT&T’s rates for the iPhone 5. But since you are switching, you have the option to consider Net10, Straight Talk, ATT Pay and Go, and even T-Mobile. When you go prepaid,  you are committed to a service for one month, that’s it. You try it, you don’t like it, you move on. This is assuming your phone is unlocked(and yours are). All you really need to worry about is making sure you can port your number.

I’d also encourage you to read through some of the earlier posts on smartphonematters.com. I went through this process with a reader , Elizabeth a little while ago. She was interested in Net10 but in the end opted for AT&T prepaid. It was more expensive than Net10, but she wanted the support of being able to go the the ATT store for help. Let me know if I can help or at least how it goes for you.

Regards
Bob

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