Support through social media was also frustrating, as Straight Talk never answered a question we posed on Twitter to the carrier's support account. When we went undercover to test customer phone support at nine carriers, we consistently ran into a messy automated phone system and unsatisfying answers from Straight Talk's phone reps, who were difficult to understand. Not only can you expect slower LTE speeds from Straight Talk, but you'll also get less assistance from the carrier when you run into customer-support issues. Read More: O ur Full Report Compares Straight Talk to Verizon, the Best U.S. MetroPCS, Boost and Virgin have no such restrictions from their parent networks (T-Mobile in the case of MetroPCS, Sprint in the case of Boost and Virgin), and they all handily outperformed Straight Talk. The next slowest carrier was Cricket, with a 6.0-Mbps download average, but parent carrier AT&T caps Cricket's speeds at 8 Mbps. In our testing, Straight Talk tallied an average download speed of 5.1 Mbps nationally. And all of those carriers offer faster LTE speeds than Straight Talk does. If you'd rather save more money than have more data, MetroPCS, Boost and Cricket all join Virgin in offering lower-priced plans than anything you'd find at Straight Talk. If you'd like unlimited LTE data, both MetroPCS and Boost Mobile offer unlimited plans for just $5 more than what Straight Talk's 5GB plan costs (though both those unlimited plans place caps on video streaming). The same 5GB of data that costs you $45 each month at Straight Talk will set you back only $35 at Virgin. But expand your search for cellphone service to other prepaid carriers, and Straight Talk's savings evaporate. Straight Talk's $45 plan is $10 cheaper than Verizon's similarly sized 5GB plan, though Verizon had the best LTE performance of any carrier when we conducted our latest round of network speed tests in six cities. Read More: Tom's Guide Rates the Best and Worst Phone Carriers
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