AT&T prepay, now with smartphones

[MaxBurn]

Just saw ATT added smartphones to their prepaid Go Phone plans
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-ph...jsp?wtSlotClick=1-0050TW-0-2&_requestid=89814

My top questions, now with answers.
Is it iphone compatible = YES!
Does the data expire = YES
If you have auto renew turned ON and you go over your data amount AND you have enough money attached to the account the data will renew automatically. If you don't have enough money in the account, you need to by more and then call in to get data restarted because once stopped it won't restart by itself.

It is likely you will need a new SIM but if you want to sign up over the phone 18003310500 can do it. I needed a new SIM but I got the SIM and activation free, YMMV. Apparently out of contract ATT SIMs get disabled.

Smartphone data plans for Go Phone prepaid
$5 for 10 MB
$15 for 100 MB
$25 for 500 MB

Voice is either $2 a day or $.10 a minute.

In contrast ipad users pay $15 for 150 MB, so not a bad deal really IMO. Obviously not as good as the ipad 2gig $25/mo plan, but it is FAR better than the previous $75/mo unlimited/200 MB prepaid Go Phone plans.

Data on the Go Phone prepay plan requires an APN. This is the best guide I found for this exact situation:
http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2010/07/28/use-your-old-iphone-as-a-prepaid-go-phone/

Or simply go to http://www.unlockit.co.nz/
Add a custom APN, in drop down select “US – AT&T.” and install that profile.

Edited with answers.

 

[eastercat]

If you search, you'll see people have been using their iphones with pay as you go for a while now.

 

[MaxBurn]

Online CS rep says no iphone on prepaid plan, at all.

The only smartphone they have on prepaid now is the LG Thrive Android 2.2 at $179.99 so I am not really inclined to see if I could get that and swap sims. Also I don't see a way to add a data plan for prepay via the web order.

This was really looking good, just want something to bridge me till iphone5.

 

[MaxBurn]

If you search, you'll see people have been using their iphones with pay as you go for a while now.

I know but the data cost is horiffic on those plans. These plans were good,
$15 for 100 MB
$25 for 500 MB

Not sure what it would take to get into the smartphone plan with those data rates with an iphone. The $75/mo unlimited/200mb plan is not me.

$.10 a minute and 500mb for $25/mo is pretty much me.

 

[Apple 26.2]

$2/day for the privilege of using the phone, plus costs... nice.

 

[AndroidfoLife]

AT&T has the worst prepaid plans. Go with boost they are not smart and charge 60 bucks for unlimited blackberry but charge 50 bucks for every other phone including androids. As far as the Phone that AT&T is selling that thing is like locust it is officially on every major US carrier including Cricket and Metro. I have one of them on T-mo and love it.

 

[wordoflife]

If I was going prepaid, I would go with the LG Optimus V. (Virgin Mobile USA).
Sure, it's not an iPhone, but $25 (about ~$27-28 with tax) a month for unlimited data, text and 300 minutes sounds good to me. You could just get an iPod Touch too and probably tether it. The rates AT&T charges for prepaid seem a little too expensive for owning an iPhone.

Oh wait ... now I'm going off topic.

There are many people use the iPhone prepaid. I'm not sure if you need to change the settings on the phone (google that part) but it is possible

 

[MaxBurn]

Yeah, not really interested in another phone just want something with some decent priced data and not much actual phone for my iphone. 500mb data would be more than enough for me.

 

[macingman]

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I'm happy to see that AT&T is now offering prepaid smartphone plans anyway. Whenever I go to the US I am stuck with using T-mobile on my iPhone. But at least with these new smartphone plans I can use the iPhone on AT&T, I really don't care about the cost as I only recharge the sim card once for the whole trip.

 

[livlif]

Yeah, not really interested in another phone just want something with some decent priced data and not much actual phone for my iphone. 500mb data would be more than enough for me.

I am using the new $2/day plan with 500 mb of data and it's working great for me. I signed up on Sunday. They also have an auto renewal you can add for the data. Meaning, if you exhaust the 500 mb it will auto charge you another $25 and give you an additional 500mb of data. This works perfect for me as I never use more than 1gb of data per month. Usually I'm less than 500mb. Saves me money in the long run.

 

[MaxBurn]

I am using the new $2/day plan with 500 mb of data and it's working great for me. I signed up on Sunday. They also have an auto renewal you can add for the data. Meaning, if you exhaust the 500 mb it will auto charge you another $25 and give you an additional 500mb of data. This works perfect for me as I never use more than 1gb of data per month. Usually I'm less than 500mb. Saves me money in the long run.

Thanks for posting, what was the process you went through to get it?

From searching old posts the easiest way to go prepay was to get a cheap phone get it working and do a sim swap which is not a really good idea when that phone is $175 or so. I assume you just told them you had a blackberry or something at home?

 

[PsstGreek]

If I was going prepaid, I would go with the LG Optimus V. (Virgin Mobile USA).
Sure, it's not an iPhone, but $25 (about ~$27-28 with tax) a month for unlimited data, text and 300 minutes sounds good to me. You could just get an iPod Touch too and probably tether it. The rates AT&T charges for prepaid seem a little too expensive for owning an iPhone.

I actually thought about doing this and selling my iPhone 4. But that new cancellation fee AT&T has, will kill me to pay it.

 

[MaxBurn]

I tried to go sign up for this today but the guys in the store knew less than I did about the plan. The only thing they said they knew is that they had to have the IMEI of the phone to sign it up if you are bringing your own phone. He wasn't sure exactly what happened if you went over the data cap inside a month but he was fairly sure the data expired at the end of the month.

He even mentioned he wasn't sure what happened if you had an ipad and went over the cap in a month (I didn't bring it up), and I mentioned those things have been out a year and you don't know? Yeah...

Going to try another store tomorrow I guess. Anyone have a favorite store in southern NH or north of Boston?

 

[wordoflife]

I actually thought about doing this and selling my iPhone 4. But that new cancellation fee AT&T has, will kill me to pay it.

I think it's a pretty good deal. I would consider doing this if I was paying my own bill. (Good opportunity to try out Android anyways). I'm not sure where you are located in FL, but coverage is fairly good (basically Sprint's network). You can probably pay off the ETF from selling your iPhone, and since Virgin Mobile's bill will be (presumably) cheaper than what you are paying now, in a few months, it will probably cover the price of the Optimus V.

 

[zap2]

I tried to go sign up for this today but the guys in the store knew less than I did about the plan. The only thing they said they knew is that they had to have the IMEI of the phone to sign it up if you are bringing your own phone. He wasn't sure exactly what happened if you went over the data cap inside a month but he was fairly sure the data expired at the end of the month.

He even mentioned he wasn't sure what happened if you had an ipad and went over the cap in a month (I didn't bring it up), and I mentioned those things have been out a year and you don't know? Yeah...

Going to try another store tomorrow I guess. Anyone have a favorite store in southern NH or north of Boston?

I believe that you have to add data to you account per 30 days if you want to keep unused data. But you could pay the 5 bucks to top it off if you don't actually want to lose the data you paid for.
(At least, thats how the old accounts used to work)

As for them needing the IEMI number, I too thought that, but I was reading this work around(it involved taking the SIM card out of a prepard phone then calling AT&T to attivate it, sorry can't remember the details and I forget where I read it)

 

[livlif]

They shouldn't need an imei. The associate never even asked for mine. I didn't pull out my iPhone 4 until the plan was activated and he asked to put it in the phone to make sure the calls and data worked. All he did was scan in the sim card and create the account. He ported my number overfrom tmobile andeverything. The 500mb plan is new and started on Sunday 4/17. He may have to call another store to find out how to add it on. That's what the guy did that was helping me. Also if you plan on possibly going over 500mb get the autopay option for data. That way it charges your account an additional $25 (if you have the balance available) to keep your data active and going.

 

[livlif]

The only thini find annoying is that after the first call of everyday I get a message notifying me of my balance. Would be nice if I could turn that feature off. It's getting old.

 

[MaxBurn]

Yeah I think the guy in the store was about clueless. I'm going to got try the att store up in Manchester.

 

[MaxBurn]

Spent some time on the phone, not really impressed with the knowledge in the local sales staff.

Store 1, actual ATT store = We need your IMEI, I didn't ask about iphone directly.

Store 2, ATT reseller = No you can't use anything else, you must get the LG Thrive Go Phone.

Store 3, actual ATT store = Wasn't aware of a smart phone plan for go phone, looked it up and started reading. Yes the LG thrive is there but says he sees words "LG Thrive or other existing handsets" but no further info on what those could be or if iphone is ok. Try calling the 800 number.

18003310500 = Got Johnny, american accent and wasn't aware of the go phone smartphone plans. He did a polite handoff to the go phone department and I got Kara with an indian accent. I asked specifically if I could put an iphone on the go phone plan with smartphone data and this triggered a three minute diatribe on how the iphone is evil and will eat up all my data (paraphrasing here, my words) but YES if I wanted I can put an iphone on the go phone smartphone plan. So I asked to sign up right now, she took down my sim card number and said I need a new sim so go in a store and get one, they can do the whole process in store.


Just wow, I used to work for bestbuy years ago when I was doing college and we obviously had a much better information discrimination plan than ATT does. Anything new that came by we had to read some stuff online and then have a team meeting to go over it, generally every morning refreshers too.

 

[MaxBurn]

Success!

Armed with the information from the 800 number I went back into Store #1 and got them up to speed. They did some reading and printed some stuff out for future reference. At all times they were polite and apologetic and basically said that on their end it was a "silent" launch (air-quotes and all) and weren't really updated on the ability to do this.

They signed me up and added data no problem. They did enter my IMEI into their computer. I didn't realize it at the time but now that I look at the receipt they gave me a free sim and free activation.

Data didn't work right away, you need to do your APN settings. This is the best guide I found for this exact situation:
http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2010/07/28/use-your-old-iphone-as-a-prepaid-go-phone/


Best of luck to anyone else trying this. I'd say basically print out the AT&T go phone website page showing the smartphone plans and bring that in to nudge them if they had never heard of it.

 

[Icehusky]

I have trouble doing this, please give me some advice and answer.

I have a Iphone 4 locked to AT&T. It is upgraded to Version 4.3.3 with baseband 04.10.01 and it is jailbroken by redsn0w. I bought a blue AT&T sim that works on any cell phone and I activated it with Smartphone 10¢/Minute Plan. When I insert the SIM(of course cut) into my iphone 4, it only show one signal bar and no carrier next to it. If I wait long enough, I get "No Service". I tested this SIM on many other cell phones and it works fine.

What did I miss?

My questions are:
1.what did you use to jailbreak? Do you have a unlocked iphone?
2.what is your baseband?
3.I have heard that it can be fixed by restoring to the newest version without jailbreaking. But, I still want my iphone jailbroken. What specific steps did you do to make the iphone it is now which is "iPhone 4 32gb - 4.3.3 jailbroken - on GoPhone Smartphone prepaid"?
Any suggestion?
Thank you for your help!

 

[Val-kyrie]

If I was going prepaid, I would go with the LG Optimus V. (Virgin Mobile USA).
Sure, it's not an iPhone, but $25 (about ~$27-28 with tax) a month for unlimited data, text and 300 minutes sounds good to me. You could just get an iPod Touch too and probably tether it. The rates AT&T charges for prepaid seem a little too expensive for owning an iPhone.

Oh wait ... now I'm going off topic.

There are many people use the iPhone prepaid. I'm not sure if you need to change the settings on the phone (google that part) but it is possible

Upon whose network does Virgin Mobile piggyback? I am just curious because I am considering current options for a phone and plan.

 

[wordoflife]

Upon whose network does Virgin Mobile piggyback? I am just curious because I am considering current options for a phone and plan.

Sprint's nationwide network. Wherever there is Sprint coverage, there is VM coverage.

 

[MaxBurn]

I have trouble doing this, please give me some advice and answer.

I have a Iphone 4 locked to AT&T. It is upgraded to Version 4.3.3 with baseband 04.10.01 and it is jailbroken by redsn0w. I bought a blue AT&T sim that works on any cell phone and I activated it with Smartphone 10¢/Minute Plan. When I insert the SIM(of course cut) into my iphone 4, it only show one signal bar and no carrier next to it. If I wait long enough, I get "No Service". I tested this SIM on many other cell phones and it works fine.

What did I miss?

My questions are:
1.what did you use to jailbreak? Do you have a unlocked iphone?

No Jailbreak necessary to do the gophone SIM but I used redsn0w.

2.what is your baseband?

Latest 4.10.01, locked to ATT.

3.I have heard that it can be fixed by restoring to the newest version without jailbreaking. But, I still want my iphone jailbroken. What specific steps did you do to make the iphone it is now which is "iPhone 4 32gb - 4.3.3 jailbroken - on GoPhone Smartphone prepaid"?
Any suggestion?
Thank you for your help!

I bet this is your problem: AT&T locks gophone SIMs to specific phones, generally you can't just swap the SIM that you purchased with a cheap gophone. According to their forums the SIM unlocks after six months or you can call in to have it unlocked, or you can get a new blank SIM from an AT&T store and have them update your gophone account with that.

You shouldn't have to do anything special on the iphone to get voice and show signal when inserting a gophone SIM. Maybe do a reboot.

For data on gophone:

Data didn't work right away, you need to do your APN settings. This is the best guide I found for this exact situation:
http://www.theiphoneguru.net/2010/07/28/use-your-old-iphone-as-a-prepaid-go-phone/

For some phones you can enter APN data right on the phone under settings but I think most locked phones hide this. There is a jailbreak hack to reveal this but the above link works for everyone and is easy.