It's not a huge deal for me, but the wife would prefer staying with ST than losing her current number. Obviously, being with straight talk I'm not with AT&T.
Please see our "Support" section if you need assistance with upgrading your current phone or plan, or select "continue" if you would like to shop for a new line of service. Have you unlocked a Straight Talk phone before? Sound off in the comments section below.I've tried switching my wife and I over from ST to AT&T and when I enter the number for each of us I receive the following:ĪT&T already provides service for this number. You’ll have to pay some extra cash upfront for an unlock code, but they’ll enable you to bypass the barriers that Straight Talk puts in front of you. As we mentioned, a third-party service is a great last resort. So if you don’t meet Straight Talk’s requirements for unlocking a smartphone, you might think you’re out of luck - but not quite. Having to have 12-months of straight pay-as-you-go service is a difficult one to meet as a prepaid service, as not everyone sticks with prepaid for long. Straight Talk’s requirements are pretty few, but still pretty strict. Once you purchase a code, it’s usually sent directly to the provided email, and then you can follow the included steps to unlock your phone. Make sure they’re reputable, otherwise you might end up handing your money to one in return for, well, nothing. You’ll want to search around and research good companies for this, though. It does usually cost some money, which can range from a couple bucks all the way up to an average of $60. Using a third-party unlocking company can get your phone operating on another network in no time, and without all of the red tape from your carrier. Luckily, as a last resort, you can use a third-party service to unlock your smartphone. There are requirements you have to meet, and if you don’t meet them, your unlock request is denied. Straight Talk, just like other carriers out there, has some red tape in place that makes it difficult to unlock a phone.
You can use phones from before 2015 on GSM carriers as well however, you’ll have to make sure that they have they necessary radios and hardware support for calling, text messages, and 4G LTE data. Unfortunately, you might not have great luck on Sprint and its subsidiaries. If the phone is made in 2015 or later, you can take it on GSM networks like AT&T and T-Mobile as well. You can use it on Verizon, as Straight Talk is Verizon owned. Remove the Straight Talk SIM card, and replace with your carrier of choice’s SIM card.Īnd that’s all there is to it! What carrier can you use a Straight Talk phone on?Īfter you unlock your Straight Talk phone, you can take it to at least three carriers.Once you meet the prerequisite, you can call up Straight Talk and have them give you, text you, or email you an unlock code. Provide your deployment papers, and Straight Talk will honor the unlocking request.Īs you can see, there aren’t a lot of requirements, but it’s still a pretty strict one. You will have to use a Straight Talk phone that isn’t blacklisted, but you don’t have to meet the others. Military members don’t have to necessarily meet all of these requirements either. Customers must possess a Straight Talk phone that is not reported stolen, lost, or associated with fraudulent activity (i.e.a non-former customer), you may still request an unlock code, but Straight Talk may charge a reasonable fee to provide this. Straight Talk will unlock phones of current and former Straight Talk customers without charge however, if you purchased a Straight Talk phone as a private seller (i.e.It has to be consecutive, uninterrupted service. Straight Talk will unlock your phone after 12 months of pay-as-you-go service.That isn’t the case - Straight Talk has at least one requirement that you have to meet in order to unlock your phone: The confusion is that since Straight Talk is owned by Verizon, who ships phones as unlocked, Straight Talk phones would be unlocked, too. Unlike popular opinion, Straight Talk phones come locked, not unlocked. There’s a few prerequisites that you have to meet, but the overall process is pretty easy.
Either way, your Straight Talk phone needs to be unlocked to use it on another network. Trying to unlock your smartphone on Straight Talk? Maybe you’re in a poor service area and need to use the SIM from another carrier, or you’re headed out on international travel and want to use a local carrier in your destination country.