Straight Talk’s Latest Phone Plan Dead Already?

About a week ago, I noticed that Straight Talk Wireless had posted a new phone plan on its website that seemed rather out of place.  You can read the details about it further down in this article.

Today, someone left a comment asking where the plan was on Straight Talk's website, as they could not find it.  I checked it out myself and noticed it was gone as well.  There is also no sign of the plan on any of Straight Talk's social media accounts.

At this point, I am not sure what happened with the offering and can only guess.  I suppose it's possible that Straight Talk put the plan out to test the market.  It may also be that Straight Talk accidentally put out it on their website before they were ready to officially release it.  Whatever the case may be, if it comes back out again, I'll update this article and add the plan back to the cell phone plan finder.

Originally published: April, 26, 2017

Straight Talk Wireless, one of several TracFone owned brands, has recently come out with a new cell phone plan offering.  The new plan features unlimited talk, text and data with the first 2 GB at high speed and it is priced at a cost of $35/month.  Like all Straight Talk phone plans, service is available on all 4 major networks in the USA, which include Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T.

Analysis

This announcement is a major disappointment in my book for several reasons.  First off, Straight Talk Wireless and Net10 have long been sister brands, offering nearly identical cell phone plans at the exact same prices using the same underlying parent networks.  More recently though, the brands have started to diverge just a little bit.

This latest offering from Straight Talk represents more of a divergence, and doesn't really make sense to me.

The reason is, Net10 Wireless already has a plan with unlimited talk, text and data but with the first 3GB at high speeds.  That Net10 plan is priced at $36, just $1 more per month than what this new offering from Straight Talk is priced at but you get 1GB/month more of high speed data! That sounds like a big pricing whiff by Straight Talk, given that Net10 phone plans are typically sold in stores with Straight Talk plans nearby.  Given the choice between the two, its hard to see a customer choosing this Straight Talk plan over Net10's offering unless for some reason they don't want to enable auto pay on their account, in which case the Net10 plan would cost $40/month.

Another issue for me is that fellow TracFone brand, Total Wireless, offers much better value at that price point than either Net10 or Straight Talk as its cell phone plan includes 5 GB of high speed data per month.  However, unlike the other two, Total Wireless only operates on Verizon's network, so an argument can also be made that the three providers and thus their price points aren't totally comparable.

One last point is that since the major carriers have begun to limit their phone plan offerings to unlimited data plans only, I was hoping, and am still hoping to see more MVNOs offer more data and better deals at lower price points.  This new Straight Talk plan just doesn't appear to be one of those better deals.