I use StraightTalk in NYC with an official unlocked iPhone 4S, because it's less than half the price of AT&T, but dealing with them has been horrendous. If you aren't good with computers, forget about it, ever.
They supply their SIM cards with a list of "settings" (APN), but it turns out 1) you can't access them on an unlocked iPhone, and 2) they're both wrong and incomplete anyways. Calling them up, their customer service told me it will never work without jailbreaking my iPhone (which is completely incorrect), and gave me another set of settings to try, which also didn't work.
In the end, after much Googling, experimentation, etc. (including the T-Mobile SIM card swap trick), I discovered the following worked:
- Download the Apple "iPhone Configuration Utility"
- Create a profile with not just correct APN settings (att.mnvo) but also the proxy server and port (66.209.11.33:80), despite the fact that the customer service representative kept insisting it must be left blank
- Attach the profile to your phone, and restart it once or twice
I've accepted the fact that MMS will simply never work, but most people I know use iMessage anyways, so I don't really mind.
The absolute worst part was a couple of weeks ago, when StraightTalk decided to change its proxy from 66.209.11.32 to 66.209.11.33, incrementing the IP address by one. My data didn't work for two days, calling them gave me someone else completely unqualified who insisted that they never need to tell anyone when they change their internal settings, because iPhones detect them and self-update automatically, etc. And that besides, nothing had changed, and a proxy isn't necessary anyways. It was only through trial-and-error that I discovered the new functioning proxy (because it happened to be the same as the MMS one, now, unlike before).
So, you will save money, but the experience is horrible. It is ridiculous that Apple doesn't expose APN/MMS/etc. settings on their unlocked phones, and it's ridiculous that StraightTalk can't even provide minimally correct information to their customers on how to get their SIM cards to work.
In my experience, the proxy server for the internet APN is not necessary, and in fact hinders certain functionality (I know that it at least blocks the download component of Speedtest.Net; when I saw that, I didn't bother to use it long enough after that to figure out what else it was breaking).
I am currently using a configuration profile generated with the Configuration Utility in order to work around the internet access problem. It works fine for that, and I had no problem setting that up. I've had no problem with the service and no problem with configuring it provided that I had a place to enter the values that needed to be configured.
Back when I used the iOS 5.x modified-iTunes-backup procedure to modify the APNs, I found that all I needed to do was to change any of the default AT&T APNs to the "att.mvno" one and leave everything else the way that AT&T had already configured it for their service (including all of the default MMS values). So I haven't been using the Straight Talk supplied web proxy since day 1, and it's worked just fine. MMS used to work fine, too.
The thing that galls me about the MMS problem from a practicality perspective is that a friend of mine who doesn't own an iPhone could send me an MMS message, and not only would I never know that they sent it, but they would never know that I never got it. From their perspective, it was successfully sent, and nothing got kicked back to them. From my perspective, nothing ever showed up.
Yeah, I truly don't understand at all why my 4S refuses to access data unless I put in the proxy. StraightTalk says I don't need to, other people on the Internet say I don't need to, but my own experience shows me it simply doesn't work without it. I haven't got the slightest idea why.
I also can't for the life of me imagine why the iPhone config utility doesn't have fields for MMS. It seems like such a strange and pointless omission.
Apple has zero incentive to make life easier on those switching carriers to budget carriers. Nothing bizarre or pointless about that. For every guy like you, there's 100 others who will never switch over. This keeps Apple partners like AT&T very happy. Also less support load for apple geniuses.
Well, that all depends on what Apple's internal corporate culture's value system is, doesn't it? If they want to continue to give off the impression that the end-user is their direct customer and that they prize that end-user's experience above all else, then they need to distance themselves from things like this.
I think that Apple has worked very hard to cast this image of themselves as the champion of the end-user. If that's the case, then they need to start proving it with mobile devices like the iPhone, which occupies a market segment where users have traditionally not been regarded as much more than pawns. I feel as though Apple here is treating this situation like their ongoing business relationship with AT&T and other carriers is more important than satisfying the needs of their customers whenever the two are in conflict. I suspect that Apple wouldn't want that kind of press.
It is super annoying that Apple does not unlock this menu when they unlock phones. Apparently it's present on some, but I don't know which. (The menu being settings > general > network > general data network)
Instead, I just jailbroke my iphone 4 and installed the TetherMe app, which unlocks this menu. I don't use tethering or any other jailbreak functions, and am stuck on iOS 5 until a new jailbreak is released, but it's such a huge time saver that I would recommend it for iphones that aren't on iOS 6 yet.
The menu lock/unlock is controlled by whichever included carrier profile your SIM card IIN is associated with. My Straight Talk SIM card has an AT&T IIN, so it automatically uses the AT&T carrier profile (to my great annoyance, as if that weren't already clear to everybody :-)). A carrier might decide to not lock the menu for their customers, and if you have a SIM card that has no associated carrier profile, you will automaticall be granted open access to the menu.
I couldn't get Apple's configuration tool to work for me. I tried the Tmo swap trick too, but that didn't work either.
What I learned DID work was just popping the SIM out, going to the settings screen, popping it back in, doing the app change trick, and then changing the settings as needed.
Hmmm...if only it were that easy. When my SIM isn't in the phone, the "Cellular" menu under General in Settings is grayed out and it says "No SIM" to the right of it. If I can't get in that menu, I can't get to the Cellular Data Network submenu.
This is iOS 6, remember. I think the instructions you linked to on the HF wiki were written for iOS 5, since they talk about General -> Network -> Cellular Data, instead of General -> Cellular -> Cellular Data...that menu got renamed in iOS 6. They no workie, at least without a T-Mobile SIM.
They supply their SIM cards with a list of "settings" (APN), but it turns out 1) you can't access them on an unlocked iPhone, and 2) they're both wrong and incomplete anyways. Calling them up, their customer service told me it will never work without jailbreaking my iPhone (which is completely incorrect), and gave me another set of settings to try, which also didn't work.
In the end, after much Googling, experimentation, etc. (including the T-Mobile SIM card swap trick), I discovered the following worked:
- Download the Apple "iPhone Configuration Utility"
- Create a profile with not just correct APN settings (att.mnvo) but also the proxy server and port (66.209.11.33:80), despite the fact that the customer service representative kept insisting it must be left blank
- Attach the profile to your phone, and restart it once or twice
I've accepted the fact that MMS will simply never work, but most people I know use iMessage anyways, so I don't really mind.
The absolute worst part was a couple of weeks ago, when StraightTalk decided to change its proxy from 66.209.11.32 to 66.209.11.33, incrementing the IP address by one. My data didn't work for two days, calling them gave me someone else completely unqualified who insisted that they never need to tell anyone when they change their internal settings, because iPhones detect them and self-update automatically, etc. And that besides, nothing had changed, and a proxy isn't necessary anyways. It was only through trial-and-error that I discovered the new functioning proxy (because it happened to be the same as the MMS one, now, unlike before).
So, you will save money, but the experience is horrible. It is ridiculous that Apple doesn't expose APN/MMS/etc. settings on their unlocked phones, and it's ridiculous that StraightTalk can't even provide minimally correct information to their customers on how to get their SIM cards to work.