Verizon has pissed me off and I want to end my contract. the problem is they are the only carrier I can get  decent service with where I live. I have heard that straight talk uses verizon towers so maybe that's the best option. Is there a way to use a galaxy s5 with straight talk? Do I need an unlocked s5? Where is a trusted place to buy unlocked phones?

Tmobile will pay of your contract...

Go look at the tracfone line-up. They two or three new smart phones including a 4G model, for around $50-$70. They use verizon as well iirc, and with the triple minutes, triple data, and triple messages it is cheap. I bought a 400 minute card ($79.99) in Feb. and am still on the same card.  Do all of your customer service on line though as phone reps are morons. And, yes you can keep your current number. My signal is good everywhere!!!! Luck.

Straight Talk. $45 a month....taxes and all. You can also use Verizon Towers (best in the business).

Okay. I'm going to save you a lot of pain and struggle before you delve into the labyrinthine quagmire that is figuring out how Straight Talk works.



Here is what you need to know. Straight talk has contracts with the major carriers. They sell their own Straight Talk phones which you can purchase for full price from their website. They also sell SIM cards designed to work with their service. Those go for around $6.



If you want to bring your own phone to straight talk, you need to get a BYOP sim card for that phone. Each phone is designed to work off of one of the two major cell networks we have in the US: CDMA or GSM. Verizon and I believe Sprint work on CDMA, while AT&T and T-Mobile work on GSM. Maybe there are some phones which can do both, but I am not familiar with those. For the purposes of this explanation, we will assume your phone does one or the other. The way you can tell is.. when people sell their phones, they will say what the original carrier was, e.g., Verizon.



Okay great, so you have a Verizon Galaxy S5 or whatever. Now it MUST be unlocked. Do whatever it is that you have to do to unlock the phone. Maybe you have to take it to the Verizon store to have them unlock it for you (AT&T does this over the phone) or whatever. You must have an "unlocked" phone. This means it can be used by other carriers and not just Verizon.



Once your phone is unlocked -- or if you purchased it that way like I did -- then you get the Straight Talk sim card from the BYOP program. The website will ask which carrier you currently use while it's selling you the sim. You will want to get the Verizon sim card. It will be about $6 and only takes 2-3 days to get to your house.



Now that you have the sim, you power down the phone, insert the sim (and take out the old sim if one exists), then power up the phone. You might want to call straight talk before you do this. There is a phone number and instructions which come with the sim card packaging.



If you want to keep your phone number, DO NOT DISCONNECT the phone from Verizon or other carrier before signing up with straight talk. Assuming you still have service with Verizon, when you call straight talk (on a DIFFERENT PHONE) they will port your number over to their services. Their call center is in like India or Philippines or something, but I've personally never had a problem. The porting process takes a few hours. They say give it up to like 12-24 hours, but it only took about 4-6 hours for me.



I have never had a problem with straight talk, and I'm using a Nexus 5 phone which I purchased used off of Craigslist. It was already unlocked when I purchased it.



You will have to create an account at straight talk's website. Put in your payment information and choose your billing play. I have unlimited everything for $45 per month... had it for the past year, and it is wonderful. I've been a very happy customer. They recently added LTE to their network, so if you are in an appropriate area, you can get LTE service.



One thing to note. Since this is a pre-paid service and not on a contact, if your payment gets declined AT ALL, they will disconnect your service and you will lose your phone number. Make sure to set it up so it bills a credit card or a debit account which will not be declined. I have never had a problem. They automatically send you a text message every time they bill your card for service. I believe you can pre-pay up to like a year in advance, which is very smart because you get a free month of service.



The sim card packaging has all of the instruction, but it can be kind of confusing. You may have a problem initially getting data service. You will need to call straight talk customer service, and they can walk you through the appropriate information to put into the phone so it can connect to the data network.

thanks for the info. Will this method work with the s5 for sure? That's a lot of coin if I cant get it to work.

The only issue you may run into is Straight Talk does not do 4G over Verizon yet, so your phone being a 4G phone may not work on straight talk. We run into this all the time where I work/live. Its a strictly CDMA area and only Verizon and USCC work in this area. I also work part time at Walmart in Electronics and sell the Straight Talk phones. I have yet to find anyone successfully take a 4G Verizon phone and get it to work on Straight Talk in a CDMA only area.



 

None of these hassles exist with Tracfone as far as I know.. Go to their website and verify your phone compatibility. Follow the prompts from there.

IIRC, straight talk owns tracfone or vice versa. It's just tracfone's walmart brand or something like that. I have nothing against tracfone per say, but I have seen another brand called Net10 which looks very appealing as well. I wouldn't mind checking them out either. They sell the sim cards just like straight talk does.



The other poster is right. If your Galaxy S5 works only on 4G with CDMA, and if straight talk doesn't offer 4G service for CDMA right now, then you are probably out of luck. This is exactly why I like GSM phones. Also another reason is... the rest of the world uses GSM. So if you go on a trip to Europe or something, you can just buy a cheap pre-paid sim card from their country, plug it into the phone, and you're in business.



If you want to know if your phone will work on straight talk's network, you can write down the IMEI or whatever the number is called and then call them. They will look in their database to see if the phone will work on their system and let you know.

Straight Talk is offering free overnight shipping for orders of $6.99 (a SIM card) or more until 8/30.

Net10 is also part of straight talk/trac phone.



 

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