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Do You Have To Pay For 3G Network?

trevpimp

trevpimp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 16, 2009
676
296
Inside A Mac Box
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

I was at bestbuy. Employee told me if youre going to purchase an iPhone you must purchase the 3G access which is an extra $30. But I have wi-fi at my house.

You really have to buy 3g even if you have Wi-Fi at home?

If yes do you know why.
 
D

daflake

macrumors 6502a
Apr 8, 2008
920
4,329
You have to pay for the data plan. This allows your phone to surf the net when you are not on WiFi...
 
question fear

question fear

macrumors 68020
Apr 10, 2003
2,277
84
The "Garden" state
trevpimp said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

I was at bestbuy. Employee told me if youre going to purchase an iPhone you must purchase the 3G access which is an extra $30. But I have wi-fi at my house.

You really have to buy 3g even if you have Wi-Fi at home?

If yes do you know why.
Click to expand...

Yes you need a data plan.

Because AT&T wants a nice, high, steady stream of income from each user, and forcing you into a data plan even when you aren't drawing on the network is a nice annuity for them.
 
A

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
trevpimp said:
If yes do you know why.
Click to expand...
Most of the reason is for the carrier to recoup part of the money they use to discount the phone to make it affordable for you.

AT&T sells the iPhone to you for $199, but they buy it from Apple for a lot more -- regular retail is $599. So even if you never use their data network, they lost a lot of money when they sold you the device for $199.

Verizon requires a data plan when you buy a smart phone, and T-Mobile just started requiring data plans for smart phones too.
 
trevpimp

trevpimp

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 16, 2009
676
296
Inside A Mac Box
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11a Safari/525.20)

aristobrat said:
trevpimp said:
If yes do you know why.
Click to expand...
Most of the reason is for the carrier to recoup part of the money they use to discount the phone to make it affordable for you.

AT&T sells the iPhone to you for $199, but they buy it from Apple for a lot more -- regular retail is $599. So even if you never use their data network, they lost a lot of money when they sold you the device for $199.

Verizon requires a data plan when you buy a smart phone, and T-Mobile just started requiring data plans for smart phones too.
Click to expand...

So does this mean for every smart phone you're required to pay for a data plan?
 
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