Apple's iPhone 5s, 5c available on Straight Talk & NET10 starting Friday

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Nationwide contract-free wireless carriers Straight Talk Wireless and NET10 Wireless will begin offering Apple's flagship iPhone 5s and mid-range iPhone 5c at Walmart stores on Dec. 13.

Walmart


As is customary for no-contract plans, buyers will be asked to pay full price up front for the handsets. Both the iPhone 5s and 5c will be available in a 16-gigabyte configuration for $649 and $549, respectively, a $50 discount from the devices' standard retail pricing.

The iPhone 5s will be sold both online and in Walmart stores, while the iPhone 5c will be offered only online. Walmart --?which owns a portion of Straight Talk in a joint venture with TracFone --?will provide interest-free financing for holders of the store's credit card, up to 18 months for the iPhone 5c and 24 months for the iPhone 5s.

Both Straight Talk and NET10 offer up month-to-month plans featuring unlimited U.S. voice minutes, text messages, and data transfer, along with unlimited international calling to a select list of countries, for between $45 and $65 per month. In addition, subscribers to NET10's "Friends and Family" plans can add additional lines at a $10-per-month discount.

Walmart began offering Apple's handsets directly to customers through Straight Talk, rather than as a reseller for larger carriers Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint, in January of this year. The retailer is one of the few apparently authorized by Apple to discount their devices, with prices generally $30 to $50 lower than competitors.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 32
    Nationwide contract-free wireless carriers Straight Talk Wireless and NET10 Wireless will begin offering Apple's flagship iPhone 5s As is customary for no-contract plans, buyers will be asked to pay full price up front for the handsets. Both the iPhone 5s and 5c will be available in a 16-gigabyte configuration for $649 and $549, respectively, a $50 discount from the devices' standard retail pricing.

    $649 and $549 are the standard pricing, not discounted at all. Did you mean to say that they will be $599 and $499 respectively?
  • Reply 2 of 32

    If they don't run on AT&T, then this is pointless. For roughly the same price, buy it unlocked and use the BYOP AT&T SIM card for either. Doing it that way at least gives you access to AT&T's LTE, unlike the Verizon-based iPhones. 

  • Reply 3 of 32

    The iPhone 5c and 5s are capable of working on any US network as long as they're unlocked (and the provider allows use of equipment they didn't sell).

  • Reply 4 of 32
    Last time I checked, the StraightTalk plans completely prohibited tethering (personal wifi hotspot) even on their so-called "unlimited data" plan. Since this is a valuable feature when traveling, and essential at home for me, I would never give it up. If it's important to you, always be sure to check the fine print!
  • Reply 5 of 32
    Originally Posted by RedGeminiPA View Post

    If they don't run on AT&T, then this is pointless.

     

    Why, when AT&T’s network sucks? iPhones purchased from Straight Talk piggyback Verizon for the purpose of use, but as with all CDMA iPhones, they’re SIM unlocked. So what’s the complaint here?

  • Reply 6 of 32
    I am just moving to US from Europe and when I fist saw the extremely high prices in USA, I couldn't believe that.

    You can have unlimited everything in Europe for 20 euro, but most don't have flat rates. So you can pay maybe 10 Euros a month for calls/sms/internet in the phone with tethering. In EU they can't block tethering, since you are paying for the net, you can use wherever you want.

    But to my point. I found ultra mobile in US for 19$ for 250 minutes, unlimited sms and 50MB of 4G. After that, each minute cost 2cents (100 minutes = 2 USD) and 250MB of internet for 5$. The best part, you have to top up more data by sms, so you are always sure there is no "surprise invoice". At the end, you pay 25$/mo for everything.

    BTW: the home internet is the same. Europe: 10 Euro fiber optics to home. At my home I could choose from 3 providers. Florida: > 50$ for worse net.

    I think we are being seriously ripped of in USA, but I dont know how is it possible.
  • Reply 7 of 32
    macxpressmacxpress Posts: 5,801member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by noescape View Post



    I am just moving to US from Europe and when I fist saw the extremely high prices in USA, I couldn't believe that.



    You can have unlimited everything in Europe for 20 euro, but most don't have flat rates. So you can pay maybe 10 Euros a month for calls/sms/internet in the phone with tethering. In EU they can't block tethering, since you are paying for the net, you can use wherever you want.



    But to my point. I found ultra mobile in US for 19$ for 250 minutes, unlimited sms and 50MB of 4G. After that, each minute cost 2cents (100 minutes = 2 USD) and 250MB of internet for 5$. The best part, you have to top up more data by sms, so you are always sure there is no "surprise invoice". At the end, you pay 25$/mo for everything.



    BTW: the home internet is the same. Europe: 10 Euro fiber optics to home. At my home I could choose from 3 providers. Florida: > 50$ for worse net.



    I think we are being seriously ripped of in USA, but I dont know how is it possible.

     

    Welcome to Corporate America...where big businesses run governments. 

  • Reply 8 of 32
    macxpress wrote: »
    Welcome to Corporate America...where big businesses run governments. 

    Not all of them, mind you. Just the connected insiders. It's a club.
  • Reply 9 of 32
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    macxpress wrote: »
    Welcome to Corporate America...where big businesses run governments. 

    No it's what happens when you allow competition and everyone goes out and builds their own network. Instead of one super network with great coverage we have multiple ones with varying levels of coverage.
  • Reply 10 of 32
    Strange, I just checked a few carriers in Europe and they are all charging about $60/mo for unlimited talk and text with 2GB of data. That is not quite as good as T-Mobile, and a far cry from Straight Talk. I couldn't find ANYTHING for $20. What services was noescape looking at?
  • Reply 11 of 32
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post

    No it's what happens when you allow competition and everyone goes out and builds their own network.

     

    No, that’s the exact opposite of what happens. The actual problem here is collusion between the carriers and ISPs. If you let everyone sell their own product and make their own thing without that happening, you inherently see competition drive costs down and quality up.

     

    You can’t have it both ways. You can’t whine that “Apple wants a monopoly by kicking out all other phone manufacturers; then they’ll just rest on their laurels and never come up with anything new” and then claim that the best thing to happen to the ISPs and telecoms is to remove all control of the network from them and only have ‘one network’.

  • Reply 12 of 32
    wdstk46 wrote: »
    Strange, I just checked a few carriers in Europe and they are all charging about $60/mo for unlimited talk and text with 2GB of data. That is not quite as good as T-Mobile, and a far cry from Straight Talk. I couldn't find ANYTHING for $20. What services was noescape looking at?

    In the Czech Republic all carriers started a price war over the summer and now they have unlimited talk, text and 1-1.5gb of data for between $30-35. Also when you hit your data limit you get throttled down to 2g speeds, not charged more. It's a pretty sweet deal.
  • Reply 13 of 32
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post





    No it's what happens when you allow competition and everyone goes out and builds their own network. Instead of one super network with great coverage we have multiple ones with varying levels of coverage.

     

    Yes, partly, but also it happens when you are trying to offer coverage over such a vast portion of the planet.  All of Europe fits in the Pacific time zone in the USA. All of Spain is about the size of Texas.  Also, the USA has legacy baggage, from the many evolutionary standards of mobile telephony.  Things aren't (always) done by fiat in the USA.  There is a cost to that.

     

    Had the USA developed over 1200 years of fifedoms and walled cities, the US population would be more densely focused in cities as found in Europe, rather than in vast regions of suburbs.  It means many in the US can have large lawns, room for a pony, big gardens, etc.  It also means public transit is often untenable, and thus there is reliance on the personal automobile.  Or that aforementioned pony (and it may come back to that).

  • Reply 14 of 32
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member

    I used Straight Talk for a couple years with no issues. Then they went through a period where they started throttling people with no reasoning assigned to it. You couldn't try to figure out what caused it. You couldn't track your data. You couldn't do anything about it. The customer service would make all manner of promises and engage in all manner of lies.

     

    I unlocked all our iPhones and took them to Tmobile. $130 a month gets everyone unlimited talk/text/data with the wife and I getting 2.5 gigs of 4G before throttling. The kids get half a gig each. It comes to $32.50 per smartphone which I consider completely reasonable.

  • Reply 15 of 32
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    No, that’s the exact opposite of what happens. The actual problem here is collusion between the carriers and ISPs. If you let everyone sell their own product and make their own thing without that happening, you inherently see competition drive costs down and quality up.

    You can’t have it both ways. You can’t whine that “Apple wants a monopoly by kicking out all other phone manufacturers; then they’ll just rest on their laurels and never come up with anything new” and then claim that the best thing to happen to the ISPs and telecoms is to remove all control of the network from them and only have ‘one network’.

    All this happened before there was mobile data, and we all had dial up. It's only gotten worse when the carriers also became the ISP.
  • Reply 16 of 32
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Yes, partly, but also it happens when you are trying to offer coverage over such a vast portion of the planet.  All of Europe fits in the Pacific time zone in the USA. All of Spain is about the size of Texas.  Also, the USA has legacy baggage, from the many evolutionary standards of mobile telephony.  Things aren't (always) done by fiat in the USA.  There is a cost to that.

    Had the USA developed over 1200 years of fifedoms and walled cities, the US population would be more densely focused in cities as found in Europe, rather than in vast regions of suburbs.  It means many in the US can have large lawns, room for a pony, big gardens, etc.  It also means public transit is often untenable, and thus there is reliance on the personal automobile.  Or that aforementioned pony (and it may come back to that).

    I agree, and while in the US there are incremental upgrades to the networks other countries leapfrog from the worst to the best rather easily.
  • Reply 17 of 32
    aaarrrggghaaarrrgggh Posts: 1,609member
    If there is no subsidy why are the plans so expensive?! It is amazing how bad a deal these providers are.
  • Reply 18 of 32
    Originally Posted by aaarrrgggh View Post

    If there is no subsidy why are the plans so expensive?! It is amazing how bad a deal these providers are.

     

    Month to month, not contract. Bad deal, huh.

  • Reply 19 of 32
    dasanman69dasanman69 Posts: 13,002member
    Month to month, not contract. Bad deal, huh.

    A high end smartphone on these fly by night carriers is like eating spam on fine china and using silverware.
  • Reply 20 of 32
    trumptmantrumptman Posts: 16,464member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by dasanman69 View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post



    Month to month, not contract. Bad deal, huh.




    A high end smartphone on these fly by night carriers is like eating spam on fine china and using silverware.

     

    I don't see why you would say that. Most of them are MVNO's who are sub-leasing the major networks. Especially if you can get your phone unlocked or just by it unlocked out the door, as I did with my iPhone 5, then what would be the problem?

Sign In or Register to comment.