verizon straight talk tracfone acquisition

[Hertzian56]

https://bestmvno.com/straight-talk/straight-talk-1st-changes-under-verizon-ownership-45-plan-goes-unlimited/

 

Ive been a basic ST customer for at least a decade and this is worrying. Usually those giants come in and try to squeeze more profit out, less for more to everyone else.

[Hertzian56]

So far no problems, they bought all of tracfone I think. I was going to start a separate thread but thought I'd just comment here on a problem I have been having with battery drain over several batteries I have for my s5. Think I finally figured it out, I noticed in the battery usage(android 6) that the phone was constantly awake even at night when I airplane mode it. I usually have waterfox browser open with my main gmail account and it looks like that was what was doing it, closed that out and the awake time bar graph plunged to nothing most of the time. So I just check it a few times a day and exit out of it right after. Not sure if it's the waterfox or the gmail page open in it that does it. Rather do that then have an app.

[Hertzian56]

Coming back to this almost a year later what a pain these people are. Apparently they turned off 3g at the new year without telling anyone or preparing for it. I made sure my S5 had VOLTE and was a 4glte phone duh says so on the device itself so it should not have affected me. That's the whole reason I sold my S4 back in 19.

 

I remember turning on VOLTE-or them turning it on remotely can't remember, as well and sending/receiving HD calls before but I think they're changes turned it off on my original sm-g900v S5 and it's an original verizon phone! Since it still has the old Verizon menus to activate HD calling/volte it won't work can't reactivate it. So I can no longer make outgoing calls nor receive incoming calls! And since the new year my signal constantly goes in and out, never had this problem with years of ST service.

 

And the customer service is atrocious, don't bother with ST at all, too many other similar priced services with cheap phones. Did the online chat no luck, called one guy he hung up on me, called another one they had to transfer to higher level-got a dial tone. No one speaks english as a first language either.

 

Since I like the replaceable battery I bought a second verizon S5 about a year ago as a backup. This one was newer and already had the HD/Volte activated so I went ahead and just took out my SIM and put it in that one, seems to work fine I can make calls and get the net. It still goes and comes signal wise and I've deactivated auto refill so unless they fix it within 6 days I'm moving on from ST after at least 7 years. I can get the same 35mo 10gb elsewhere but it aint going to be verizon or any of their brands that's for sure.

 

I also have a ST Galaxy A01 so may try to just move the sim over to that if this gives me more problems, also have a Note 3 too so options but like I said if they can't fix this constant lost signals before feb1 then it's bye bye head over to one of the other ones that will take my phone.

[Hertzian56]

All good at this point, and now I know that if I have problems I can just take out the sim and put it into my other phones which are all unlocked and either original verizon or straight talk branded like the A01. I switched network mode from global to cdma and it's been rock solid signal ever since. My number is the same and can make and receive calls no problem as well as the internet working. This s5 is zippier as well and I already had set it up with my most used apps, ebooks library, etc just exported my contacts to a vcf file and stuck it on this one then imported from it. So I'll just switch autorefill back on.

 

The biggest problem with tracfone(owned by verizon for a couple years now) is that the customer service beyond very basic needs is totally useless and time wasting, a few hours full of stress and frustration were a total waste. I had nothing to lose by just moving the simcard anyways, not married to my number. I think older people or those who are not into diy/self sufficient would be better served by paying more and having a brick and mortar store available like verizon, att, sprint etc

 

https://www.aarp.org/home-family/personal-technology/info-2021/phone-companies-ending-3g-service.html

[TreeTopsRanch]

Hertzian..You are sure correct about Tracfone service. Almost non existent. I gave up also and just went to Consumer Cellular and a new phone for the wife. Monthly price went up but service is great. I could not find a cheaper provider.

[Hertzian56]

I plan on staying with them since this is a one time thing about 3g/VOLTE and from the article I think it's due to that and the fact that the s5 I had still had the verizon menus for turning on VOLTE , which work for direct Verizon customers and their verizon accounts, not for someone using it on another service, even though since then verizon bought the service.

 

The second s5 I bought a year ago or so already had HD Voice/VOLTE enabled when I received it, from the original owner who was a verizon customer, and even turning it off in that menu is greyed out/not possible, where it has an option to activate hd voice it just says service upgraded. 3G was a lot better coverage wise, since they turned that off the coverage bars seem to be a lot less, since this is a 4g phone only seems like you have to keep paying more and more to get 5g for the better coverage. Coverage like I had before with 3g/4g, pay more for the same or slightly better, progress lol. Like with nvidia etc etc, we're actually considered farm animals(goy) by them to be farmed, sadly many are pretty much mindless pigs at a trough. They even give degrees and honors but still just belly pigs.