Nexus 4 MVNO horror story...my experience.

[realizm]

I've had my Nexus 4 since early December and I love it. It's an amazing, incredible, and probably the sexiest device that could be held in the hand...ever.
My biggest issues I have are not with the phone itself but rather the service or lack thereof. And my options or lack thereof.

I started out with Straight Talk on an ATT sim card. Signal wise everything was great. I quickly found out however that Data is heavily restricted. My phone would idle at HSPA10 and ramp up to HSPA+15 when data was needed. Great that's standard. I quickly found out that certain apps were being restricted or basically unusable. After digging around on XDA many post paid users on ATT had the same problem. Over the course of 4 months with this service and rarely ever breaking a 2GB threshold I was throttled just about every month right around 1GB, making the data part of my plan pretty much a mute point. I mean it's pretty ridiculous. I understand you want to cut me off at a certain point but until that point I should be able to whatever I damn well please to get there! Still never once saw EDGE speeds......which brings me to my Net10 T-mo story...

So where I happen to live only gets EDGE speeds, while neighboring towns(some 5 miles away) have HSPA+. So yea, not sticking around with Net10 and I'm not moving to a neighboring town so I can have HSPA+42(though I really want it)

So my main bit of advice echos partly what I've said before but based on experience as opposed to assumption.

If you have T-mo HSPA+21 or 42 where you live don't even think about it. Get a Tmo sim card. If you don't I would NOT go with Straight Talk or NET10.

I'm at the point where I know I need to go back to ATT. Just trying to figure out how....Recent rumors of ATT doing their own more appealing prepaid plans seems attractive and I'll probably hold out to see what that looks like. My other option is Red Pocket Mobile. Haven't really heard anything negative about them. Their plans are a bit more pricey, but their data limit is clearly defined at 2GB(my rough average). They also appear to use different APN settings which illicit the idea of me being able to do what I want with my data until that 2GB threshold.....

My luck I'll switch back to ATT and a few days later Tmo will launch HSPA+42 in my town....

Hope this helps some of you.

Please discuss

 

[WA_Bob]

My other option is Red Pocket Mobile. Haven't really heard anything negative about them. Their plans are a bit more pricey, but their data limit is clearly defined at 2GB(my rough average). They also appear to use different APN settings which illicit the idea of me being able to do what I want with my data until that 2GB threshold.....

My luck I'll switch back to ATT and a few days later Tmo will launch HSPA+42 in my town....

From the coverage maps they provide (at least in my area) it looks like they use AT&T's network. All things considered, that's not a bad deal since you can't really find AT&T 3G MVNO anywhere else.

As for T-Mobile, my guess is that they'll be too busy building up their LTE network now that they have Metro PCS (and it's wireless spectrum) to bothering with expanding their HSPDA +42 coverage. 4G LTE is the new future of wireless and no one is going to expand any of their 3G networks anymore since they need LTE speeds to remain competitive.

 

[timmyh318]

Sometimes you get what you pay for. Its been no secret that straight talk is never truly unlimited on att data and honestly they shouldnt be. They should of however been more honest with there approach to it when they did sell att sims. They should of had a data cap that was the same for everyone and they should of advertised it. But for 45 or 50 bucks a month you cant expect more really. I had a friend brag to me when i was on verizon that he had the exact same service i did and he only paid 45 a month. He had a straight talk phone that used verizon. So my reponse was same service huh? Lets both call 611 at the same time lets see what happens. Needless to say after 2 minutes i had a live rep on the phone he had a recording in spanish he couldnt understand. Ok now lets both go into the verizon store and see if where the same service. Needless to say sometimes paying more isnt a bad thing. The perks are worth it to me. Also having data and voice priority on a network is never a bad thing either.

 

[Banished Angel]

I agree that you get what you pay for. I'm in a similar position myself. T-Mobile only gets Edge in my town. That being said AT&T only has Edge in my town, but it you drive 2 miles outside of town in ANY direction and head into THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE IN THE COUNTRY I get full bars of HSPA+. It's more than a little annoying.

I ended up just sticking with AT&T through Straight Talk as T-Mobile isn't the greatest in non populated areas.