I still don't get the advantage of unlocked phones here in the US unless you are a frequent traveller outside the country. You are gonna be paying same monthly recurring fees subsidized or not.
No, you don't have to.
There are tens of thousands of iPhones right now with AT&T GoPhone SIMs.
If your telephone usage is minimal, it's a very viable option, but you have to calculate your own usage habits and do the math.
I think I can live with 250MB of 3G data per month. With AT&T's cheapest postpaid iPhone data plan, you get 250MB of data at $15 per month. With GoPhone, you can buy a 500GB data package for $25 which will last thirty days. However, if you buy a new data package before the expiration date, the unused data will rollover for thirty days. Hence, you can purchase a 10MB data package for $5. Total two month cost: $30 for 510MB of data, which is actually cheaper than the postpaid plan.
Calls are ten cents a minute. I average about 30 minutes of talk time on my current dumb phone (on a T-Mobile Pay As You Go SIM). I use Google Voice for my light texting on an iPod touch.
Thus, my monthly telecom expenses would average to $18. Despite the higher initial handset cost ($849 for a 64GB model), my monthly expenses are lower and the break even point is at eleven months, after which I am saving money compared to the AT&T subscriber who pays $399 for the same subsidized (and locked) handset (and ~$30 activation fee) plus another $55 per month for the cheapest call/data combo (450 min/250GB).
Over a two year period, I will have saved something like $450 and I am using ever single penny I paid for.
I will have an unlocked phone that can be easily used abroad, plus I have something that has a higher resell value on the used market.
Many if not most iPhone users with GoPhone SIMs have done similar analyses on their own usage patterns and have reached similar conclusions.
same as any other stuff such as cars, gas, tvs, ect.........
