iPhone without $20 Data Plan?

All this hacking and cheating with the iPhone. Not that you shouldn't have more of a say over your plan, or that you shouldn't have custom ringtones or a phone that works without AT&T service plans, but it's pretty bad that you have to hack to get it.

"worse than dial up speeds"

how so? Every single time I have run a speed test, which is almost daily, i get around 150 kbps at the worst, I have gotten 280 at the highest, by my math, that is faster than dial up, unless I am completely mistaken.

I was at Logan airport yesterday browsing using EDGE and it was snappy as hell, full pages were loading in seconds, people need to stop complaining, edge is incredibly doable.




hey, another East Lansing citizen, cheers.

My understanding was that this has always been availble? I thought you could just sign up for the data plan to get through the activation, and 5 minutes later call up AT&T and cancel the data plan.

Was that information incorrect?

I think the extra $20 a month is worth it.

If I was able to afford an expensive iPhone, I'd also gladly pay the $20 for the ability to use internet/e-mail ANYWHERE, and not just a wifi spot (so EDGE is slow... it's still very useful). Plus just visual voicemail alone would be worth it. I HATE cycling through a gazillion voicemail messages! Plus having at least 200 sms texts is handy -- otherwise I'd be paying so much per message, the savings would hardly be worth it.

I guess there are people out there who'd rather save the money. But if you spent so much to get the iPhone, why be cheap with the service? I understand some people splurged JUST for the phone itself, and want to save where they can. But now you have this really cool device... which is sort of crippled, in a way. Seems a shame...

SMS plans

It's probably been noted a million times already, but AT&T has an unlimited SMS package for Family Talk plans at $29.99/mo. This covers all lines in your account, and replaces all media plans EXCEPT the iPhone data plan. Any MMS and mobile web access are billed at the usual rates unless you pick up plans for those.

I spoke to a few account reps last week and none of them were aware of this package. They only found it when searching packages by price.

Considering I was already paying $19.99/mo for unlimited SMS on one line, this was an obvious upgrade. Saves me a bunch when the bill comes due. I think the other four lines on my account are responsible for about 0kb of mobile web and 2-4 MMS per average billing cycle, so YMMV.

... and you don’t have to pay an extra $20 a month for the privilege of enduring worse than dial-up speeds over AT&T’s Edge service.

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Eh, I call BS. If you think EDGE is slower than dialup, you either haven't used dialup in a while, or you are unlucky and EDGE is slow where you're using it.

Ya ya ya, rebut all you want, I use dialup now and then when traveling and feel like I have a good grasp for comparison. If you're gonna spend $5-600 on a internet device, $240 a year for 24/7 unlimited data access is a great deal.

hcopp said:

"worse than dial up speeds"

how so? Every single time I have run a speed test, which is almost daily, i get around 150 kbps at the worst, I have gotten 280 at the highest, by my math, that is faster than dial up, unless I am completely mistaken.

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Like voice quality, data speed depends on where you live, and even exactly where you are standing.

People say "EDGE is slow" or "voice quality is poor" and forget to add: "where I am". People reading it forget that as well, and then we wonder what's up when other people come along with "EDGE is great" and "voice sounds great"!

people complain so much about everything, why buy a $600 and then try and cheap out on the most important part. Is edge on the iphone better than not having internet everywhere you go? for $20 a month?

faster, cheaper, more

I have been more than satisfied with EDGE speeds in and around Baltimore. WAY faster than dialup, heck, faster than ISDN. And when I need faster mobile speeds? Well, I plug my EV-DO Express Card into my laptop.

I kind of like having the edge available. It gets really handy when you're out and about and need to look at google maps or the weather channel. I think its worth spending the extra $20. Sometimes I actually find it to be quite fast. I think people are just too used to DSL or Cable. I find that even through wifi its not as fast as my MBP on wifi.

A Pittarelli said:

Is edge on the iphone better than not having internet everywhere you go? for $20 a month?

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Obviously not to everybody. I know that I would rather forego the $20 monthly fee (and so would many others). One size does not fit all.

hcopp said:

how so? Every single time I have run a speed test, which is almost daily, i get around 150 kbps at the worst, I have gotten 280 at the highest, by my math, that is faster than dial up, unless I am completely mistaken.

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FWIW, it varies wildly where I live. Anything over 100kbps is unusual. I'm not sure if it's because AT&T acquired their network from SunCom a year or two ago (instead of building it from the ground themselves), but it's pretty slow here.

hcopp said:

"worse than dial up speeds"

how so? Every single time I have run a speed test, which is almost daily, i get around 150 kbps at the worst, I have gotten 280 at the highest, by my math, that is faster than dial up, unless I am completely mistaken.

Click to expand...

I agree. This "worse than dial up speeds" lie has propagated even after the speed tester has proved otherwise.

People forget just how slow dialup really was.

Edge Speeds

Hi,
I like gadgets, and speed on the Edge network is ok. I can send and recieve emails anytime, surf the web if I need to and even order something online. Its better than any other phone out there... my brother has a Motorola Q and the iphone kills its web surfing abilities.. and many more...

MY 2 cents..

A Pittarelli said:

people complain so much about everything, why buy a $600 and then try and cheap out on the most important part. Is edge on the iphone better than not having internet everywhere you go? for $20 a month?

faster, cheaper, more

Click to expand...

I agree....if you can't afford the phone (which means service and phone), DO NOT BUY IT...it's like buying a ferrari and complaining about the gas costs...true costs come down to service not the actual car, same thing with this iPhone, if you can't afford the SERVICE, you can't afford the phone.

albert1028 said:

I agree....if you can't afford the phone (which means service and phone), DO NOT BUY IT...it's like buying a ferrari and complaining about the gas costs...true costs come down to service not the actual car, same thing with this iPhone, if you can't afford the SERVICE, you can't afford the phone.

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Affording and paying for something that doesn't work are two different things. I tried loading my GF's blog in a major metropolitan area (plenty of cells around) and after a minute it hadn't even loaded the text. Painful.

$240 a year could go to something way more useful than a data plan that doesn't really work and I dont' really want. WiFi is fine for me. If I'm lost in the US I'm somewhere edge won't work, and if I want to find out about the weather I look west. I'd rather take $20 a month and upgrade my cable to get HBO or get netflix or something.

Just cause I'm not a sucker doesn't mean I'm a complainer. Every service in life should be ala carte. Companies continually railroad you into package crap you don't need. Bravo to those who fight the system.

With Vodafone UK, you can get 15MB of data for £1 each day, whether you are on contract or pay as you go. That way if you don't use the internet at all in a day, or hardly use it at all, you don't even get charged the £1. Go over the 15MB you get charged £2/MB.

If you have a contract you can spend £7.50 to get 120MB data/month.

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobileinternet

Nice and cheap if you don't use the mobile internet at all.

EDGE is slow but very usable. I wouldn't buy an iphone without a data plan. I'd lose most of its usefulness, for my purposes.

smsm1 said:

With Vodafone UK, you can get 15MB of data for £1 each day, whether you are on contract or pay as you go. That way if you don't use the internet at all in a day, or hardly use it at all, you don't even get charged the £1. Go over the 15MB you get charged £2/MB.

If you have a contract you can spend £7.50 to get 120MB data/month.

http://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobileinternet

Nice and cheap if you don't use the mobile internet at all.

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Bah! That's daylight robbery, the UK really needs to sort outs its data plans.

hcopp said:

"worse than dial up speeds"

how so? Every single time I have run a speed test, which is almost daily, i get around 150 kbps at the worst, I have gotten 280 at the highest, by my math, that is faster than dial up, unless I am completely mistaken.

edge is incredibly doable.




.

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I have to agree.. I've been doing the speed tests daily and Edge is a very pleasant surprise IN MY AREA (key phrase there).. I guess I'm just lucky, but I've had tests higher than 300 plenty of times and have never had one below 174.. I do feel for the people that are getting lousy Edge speeds though because having a "more than acceptable" internet connection anywhere I go is really nice..

Hopefully AT&T will make some major improvements to the network so it's like that in as many places as possible..

ppc_michael said:

All this hacking and cheating with the iPhone. Not that you shouldn't have more of a say over your plan, or that you shouldn't have custom ringtones or a phone that works without AT&T service plans, but it's pretty bad that you have to hack to get it.

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I so have to agree with you! I think its foolish to try to trick AT&T or get over on them just "because you can". If people are waiting for a touchscreen iPod, then the wait should be just about over. Certainly we all understand it's all just a matter of time before OS X-based iPods are available. There are many wondering just what it will include. Many think it'll be just a touchscreen iPod with the abilities of the current iPod. However, John Gruber is making me think it'll be "iPods that are everything but phones, with Wi-Fi networking for email, web, and more." If you haven't read this very insightful piece, you should click the link below.

small excerpt from John Gruber said:

The reason some people are skeptical about Apple introducing OS X-based iPods this year is that the question about cannibalizing sales works both ways: an iPhone-ish OS X-based iPod would surely have some detrimental effect on iPhone sales. AT&T might care about that, but why would Apple?

The simple truth is that the iPhone user experience doesn’t just blow away the experience of other companies’ cell phones – it blows away the experience of Apple’s own iPods. The biggest question, as I see it, is whether Apple plans to introduce iPods that are more or less just the iPod app from the iPhone (i.e. just music and video players), or iPods that are everything but phones, with Wi-Fi networking for email, web, and more.

Regarding OS X-Based iPods

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If you have the data plan removed, what else do you loose besides EDGE, are you able to check your email on wifi or do you have to do that through webmail?

nagromme said:

Like voice quality, data speed depends on where you live, and even exactly where you are standing.

People say "EDGE is slow" or "voice quality is poor" and forget to add: "where I am". People reading it forget that as well, and then we wonder what's up when other people come along with "EDGE is great" and "voice sounds great"!

Click to expand...

Well, a 56k modem only actually achieves 5-10k speeds. Never sure why that was. Download a large file and check the transfer rates. Edge in my town (Atl) always gets over 200k.

I recently used a modem. Yeah, won't be doing that again. It WAS literally 20 times slower than edge.

bossass said:

Affording and paying for something that doesn't work are two different things. I tried loading my GF's blog in a major metropolitan area (plenty of cells around) and after a minute it hadn't even loaded the text. Painful.

$240 a year could go to something way more useful than a data plan that doesn't really work and I dont' really want. WiFi is fine for me. If I'm lost in the US I'm somewhere edge won't work, and if I want to find out about the weather I look west. I'd rather take $20 a month and upgrade my cable to get HBO or get netflix or something.

Just cause I'm not a sucker doesn't mean I'm a complainer. Every service in life should be ala carte. Companies continually railroad you into package crap you don't need. Bravo to those who fight the system.

Click to expand...

Yeah, well the Cable companies are pretty much the worst example of the package crap you're describing. Glad you're perfectly happy with that idea.

And Netflix just slows down your movies when you order more than they like.

Damned if you do....