Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple and The Secret Plan

Fabienne

Fabienne

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 1, 2009
1,247
7
Some super-sexy place in the Midwest
I just had an interesting bit of field research. First, I went to the local AT&T store in my neighborhood. I was informed that I could sign up for a plan for an iPhone at $69.99 for 450 minutes of time per month. OK. I have the brochure from the man. We discussed the 4G phone which is rumored to appear sometime in June this year. He chats with me about it like you would. He is very open about it. Fine.

Then today, I looked up the plans on the internet and found one for $39.99 (not including the below) for the same amount of time. I was curious, so I called Apple (1-800-MY APPLE).

I got a very nice lady within 5 minutes who was quite eager to sign me up for the 3GS and an AT&T plan. I said that I understood that there was a 4G phone coming out in June and was told that there was no plan to release a new phone, just a new OS.** I asked how much a contract would be with AT&T per month for a 3GS. Then I was told that the plan would be $69.99 plus the charges below. I said that I was looking at the AT&T website and saw that there was a $39.99/month plan (and you had to buy the things below, too, but the basic plan was $30 cheaper). She was quite surprised, said she was looking at their website and yes, that was an alternate plan for the same amount of minutes which would work with the 3GS iPhone.

Then she wanted to sign me up, right then and there. I declined. By this time I feel like there is indeed a 4g phone which is ready to appear but she just isn't going to tell me about it.

The difference between the $69.99 and the $39.99 plans are that the $69.99 plan is the "450 Anytime Minute Unlimited Plan", whereas the $39.99 plan is the "Nation 450 Minute w/Rollover Minutes" Plan. Hmmm, must be a different type of minutes between the two, like sidereal minutes vs. minutes as experienced near a black hole or something.

Am I nuts? Have I missed something here? Do you have to be very very very careful when signing up for this stuff?***


*You also have to buy the data plan at $30/month, and messaging at various levels if you want to send pictures and video.

**I think you have been saying otherwise. Heh.

***This is why I have backed way way off on all this and still think I have not gotten to the bottom of iPhone ownership. Just seems like every time you think you have it figured out, you find out that you don't. Must say that it's interesting, though.
 
The $69.99 the sales guy told you included the $30 data plan, which is required for the iPhone, on top of the $39.99 450-minute plan. There is no stand-alone $39.99 plan for the iPhone since data is always required.
 
Fabienne said:
That makes perfect sense. Their website is quite confusing if you just read it without knowing that there is always a data plan attached to a smartphone.
Click to expand...

*You also have to buy the data plan at $30/month, and messaging at various levels if you want to send pictures and video.
Click to expand...

You realize you don't HAVE to have a messaging plan to send pics and video, correct? They charge $0.30/MMS.
 
Thanks. At the moment I don't know what else to ask. Honestly, I have to admit that I have not had this much fun considering the purchase of just about any object I have ever bought. There is a lot more to it than I thought when I started.

For instance, I was considering buying a used 3GS. Before you buy it, you should understand a few things or risk an expensive disappointment (what firmware does it have, is it's SHSH backed up, can you unlock it, what do you jailbreak it with, if you can use it is it the right frequency for your carrier). When I bought my 'berry, it was "I want it,here is my money" turned it on and started to learn how to use it. This is totally different.

Now I am thinking that I can manage a new one, but that is through renegotiating my bundle and that included the realization that I can't just switch to AT&T in my town (AT&T cannot offer landline phone or internet service in Cincinnati), I have to divide my communications needs between two carriers to get what I want, and how to do that without paying way more than before is a puzzle. I can figure it out, but you do have to do a bit of research before you embark on this.

This process has become one of the most engaging things I have embarked on in the past year. I have learned an immense amount about: iPhone, Apple, Android phones, e-Bay, the system for jailbreaking, Spirit...the whole set up. Heck, I am even considering investing in some of the players as this looking hotter than any other summer in cell phone history.

The whole experience is something like a game, you can win it, but you never feel as if you know all of the rules, positives and negatives of your position at once. Thanks for offering to help, I am sure I will have a question or two before this is concluded.
 
Drop the landline. Do you really need it?

Dropped ours 2 years ago. So did Mom. So did both kids. All are doing fine.
 
OP, I think you need to learn to live a little...

There are certain things in life that are worth the effort, and there are those that aren't.
 
I would love to drop my landline. Unfortunately the sending and receiving in my house is pretty bad. My next door neighbors have the same problem, so it's not me doing something wrong. If a new cell phone conquers the dead zones in the house, I will happily give up my landline.
 
I'm sorry, is this thread really from year 2010? What secret plan are you talking about? How long has iPhone been on the market for? Everybody knows that iPhone plans start at 70 dollars per month.
 
PBF said:
I'm sorry, is this thread really from year 2010? What secret plan are you talking about? How long has iPhone been on the market for?
Click to expand...

I have to admit as I read this thread I thought the exact same thing as this poster.... I was just checking out the at&t site and I didn't really see what was all that confusing. Good luck with your new iPhone.
 
Well, there is one trick that a land-line can do that a cell phone can't...

I can knock the handset off the base of my POTS line, dial 911, and without making any more sound, police and fire will be at my door within moments.*

Response time varies greatly, your mileage will vary. Not all places have automatic respond on silent 911 calls. Mine does.

Note, I work in the telecommunications industry - I'm not guessing here. I know the limitations of cellular 911, and they can be pretty bad. Most people put too much stock into it.
 
smithrh said:
Well, there is one trick that a land-line can do that a cell phone can't...

I can knock the handset off the base of my POTS line, dial 911, and without making any more sound, police and fire will be at my door within moments.*

Response time varies greatly, your mileage will vary. Not all places have automatic respond on silent 911 calls. Mine does.

Note, I work in the telecommunications industry - I'm not guessing here. I know the limitations of cellular 911, and they can be pretty bad. Most people put too much stock into it.
Click to expand...


Let me know how your land line works in the car :)
 
smithrh said:
Whatevs....
:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You brought it up.

You can cut land lines. Land lines are useless when the power goes out and you have a cordless phone (note I said CORDLESS). Land lines don't work in cars. You would need one hell of a cable. Last I checked, when you knock over a cordless phone, it's not on automatically, you have to turn it on and dial. Now, if you can turn it on and dial 911 and not make a sound, you can do the same thing on a mobile.

Now, who doesn't have a mobile phone these days? Never had an issue with emergency services myself. Works in my car and anywhere I get signal. Now, with today's touch screens - they work without having to have fingers. So god forbid you have a major incident, you can use any part of your body to dial. Try that with a physical button.

:)
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

At this point, I only know two people who have landlines, and they both live in the sticks. Not a lot of service there. If you have some signal, but not quite enough in the house, get your Internet set up with wifi, get skype and pay next to nothing for skype wifi calls via your iPhone. Especially easy to do once multitasking us out, you will be able to receive calls any time.
 
Out of curiosity, I just looked at the coverage for voice on Cincinnati Bell. There is an oval where the coverage is not the best, my house is in that oval. There is a park close by. I was thinking it would look like that, as my reception is pretty good when I get a couple of blocks away from home.
 
-aggie- said:
You realize you don't HAVE to have a messaging plan to send pics and video, correct? They charge $0.30/MMS.
Click to expand...

Holy crap, they're up to 30 cents a message now? What a scam! I wonder if lawyers see that and think about how they got into the wrong racket?
 
AbSoluTc said:
You brought it up.

You can cut land lines. Land lines are useless when the power goes out and you have a cordless phone (note I said CORDLESS). Land lines don't work in cars. You would need one hell of a cable. Last I checked, when you knock over a cordless phone, it's not on automatically, you have to turn it on and dial. Now, if you can turn it on and dial 911 and not make a sound, you can do the same thing on a mobile.

Now, who doesn't have a mobile phone these days? Never had an issue with emergency services myself. Works in my car and anywhere I get signal. Now, with today's touch screens - they work without having to have fingers. So god forbid you have a major incident, you can use any part of your body to dial. Try that with a physical button.

:)
Click to expand...

And what happens when AT&T decides to have one of its all-too-common service outages? I actually had to get a landline a couple of months ago because my service was so unfreakingbelievably horrible with AT&T that I could no longer do my job. Dropping a conference call (thus disconnecting the entire call, which was several dozen people across the country) is completely unacceptable. Don't get me wrong--my iPhone is still my primary phone and I love it more than is normal or right, but it can't do sh*t when you have no cell service.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back