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AT&T and Apple Tightening Policies to Reduce iPhone Unlocking

extra charge specific in the terms and conditions only applying to iphone

AT&T also imposes monthly a Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge of up to $1.25 to help defray costs incurred in complying with State and Federal telecom regulations; State and Federal Universal Service Charges; and surcharges for customer-based and revenue-based state and local assessments on AT&T. These are not taxes or government-required charges.
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Funny part is it is SPECIFIC to just the iPhone section of the terms and conditions. and NOT the general gsm plans. And they highly suggest you get the global data plan if you leave the country, since there is no way to turn of visual voice mail data consumption.

Data Roaming toggle set to "OFF" will block data roaming (but not Visual Voicemail) outside the U.S., Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, with the exception of Guam or Northern Mariana Islands.
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Also the OffNet usage clause is a LOT different for iPhone as well
 
Appler said:
Last I checked, Apple is still a 'corporation'. If they somehow gave you the impression that they are not like other companies, and that profit maximization is not their main quest, then they got you good.
Not because they capture the public's imagination means that they function any differently as a body.
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You seem to intentionally miss the point of my post in order to go for the cliche potshot.

Of course Apple is a corporation. Of course making money is what they do. The question is, how have they historically differentiated themselves from the competition in order to get my money?

It hasn't been by removing features and making their products more difficult to use, I'll tell you that.
 
Abstract said:
If I knew that a particular restaurant didn't serve anything that I would enjoy, I wouldn't complain to the owner that they screwed me over. I just go to another restaurant. I'm sure you'd agree. Now just apply that logic to mobile phones, and.....
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There are some naive people in the world, and you have just landed yourself in the top 5%.

This is not a restaurant. Anyway if you would like to get your analogy accurate, the food is being pre-cooked & delivered to your restaurant. Previously we could order and have home delivery, now we are being forced to go and not only purchase the food, but sit in and eat it in a place we don't want to.

Regards,

.Joel
 
FluffyBunny said:
Well since you asked, yes, I would say much of Europe leaning heavily toward socialism (luckily some countries are coming to their senses and kicking the socialists in charge out - e.g. Germany, France)

The U.S. economy is doing fine thank you very much. I don't think high oil prices will be the end of the world. In fact, it's great, it will help to lower usage and companies will speed up research for alternatives. Capitalism is a beautiful thing.
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Ah. I guess that must be why the US dollar is holding up so well against the socialist British pound and the socialist Euro.

I should perhaps add that socialist Ericsson and socialist Nokia are two of the world's largest providers of 3G and GSM infrastructure, and in order to afford paying for all that Eurotrash gear in USD so that the 3G rollout can continue, the likes of AT&T have to charge customers truckloads of $$$ for traffic. Capitalism is indeed a beautiful thing.
 
PDE said:
And most countries in the EU are not capitalist, per your definition?? Consumer protection is not anti-capitalist, nor is it socialist. It's the result of citizens' realizing that they cannot combat rogue, and often predatory corporations by themselves (e.g., sub-prime morgages and auction rate security market) on an individual level, and therefore demand that government implement policies that assist them in making sure people are not treated unfairly by those in much greater power. Democracy at its best! Unfortunately, the only way this works is if citizens are knowledgable enough to understand what's going on in the first place, and that they believe in their ability to affect change through voting at the political level....that's not always the case, as we know.
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What you're witnessing here is the American Fox News-watching Rush Limbaugh-listening Republican population call anything even remotely left-wing "socialist" as an insult to the entire left side of politics. On the contrary, you'd never hear the left-wingers call anything remotely right-wing politically "Nazi" or "Fascist". And yes, our population is sadly not educated enough to realize what's going on, and is one of the reasons why the US is still a democratic-republic with an electoral college where we vote for votes and the real voters can not listen, and other countries actually vote for individuals directly and elect by popular demand... as well as vote no-confidence.
 
jayducharme said:
I just poked around some more on AT&T's website. I thought this was interesting:

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-ph...s/?q_sku=sku1250067&q_planCategory=cat1370013

I was looking up Family Plan rates (even though iPhone isn't specifically mentioned anywhere). The old iPhone Family Plan had unlimited data bundled with it for $109 a month. The current 700-minute-a-month Family Plan goes for $69 a month. The link above is from the Data Plan page. Again, there's no mention of iPhone. But there's a selection for "PDA" unlimited data, and it's $30 a month. And so is the Blackberry data plan.

So it appears AT&T is hiking its data plan rates for all smartphones, not just for the iPhone. And even so, $99 a month (the Family Plan plus unlimited data) is $10 a month cheaper than the previous iPhone Family Plan. If this holds up to be true on July 11, AT&T will have another customer (actually, a family of them)!
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I have the 700 minute Family iPhone plan. It is 109 to start. That is for two phones. We also have 1500 sms each. My bill is usually $144 including taxes. With the 3G iphone my bill would be 174 (10 bucks per phone plus another 5 bucks for the 1500 sms). If I had access to 3g service I would have thought about it, but since I don't I will just wait.

Who knows maybe Apple has something else up it's sleves to get us to buy (other than 3g and GPS).
 
.Joel said:
There are some naive people in the world, and you have just landed yourself in the top 5%.

This is not a restaurant. Anyway if you would like to get your analogy accurate, the food is being pre-cooked & delivered to your restaurant. Previously we could order and have home delivery, now we are being forced to go and not only purchase the food, but sit in and eat it in a place we don't want to.

Regards,

.Joel
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Nice thesis :) I'm taking blackberry bold this time and it will be delivered to me, I don't have to go to anywhere to purchase it:) I'm done with the iphone at least for a year. Plastic back and now this, every human being will have an iphone on the planet with this price range, except me :)
 
Quick question: For the current iPhone, if you unlock it and stick a t-mobile sim card, can you get internet access with it? If the iPhone 3g were to be unlocked, can we get 3G access from t-mobile???
 
Ugh ... I was dead set on buying the new iPhone until I saw the details. Yes, it's $200 cheaper, but after 2 years the data plan is $240 more than the Edge plan.

I'll wait and see what Verizon offers when Android is released.
 
.Joel said:
There are some naive people in the world, and you have just landed yourself in the top 5%.

This is not a restaurant. Anyway if you would like to get your analogy accurate, the food is being pre-cooked & delivered to your restaurant. Previously we could order and have home delivery, now we are being forced to go and not only purchase the food, but sit in and eat it in a place we don't want to.
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Wow you guys are using some pretty twisted logic.

While I would first state that arguing through analogy is a very weak tactic, the restaurant analogy is quite apt. I don't like Mexican food, so I don't go to Mexican restaurants. If I don't like AT&T that much, I can just go with another another carrier. If its more inconvenient to go with another carrier, too damn bad, and get over it. If the closest restaurant was Mexican and I had to drive another 4 miles to one I liked, too damn bad, I'll just have to deal with it.

Finally, if anything, the restaurant analogy is less accurate in that you don't need a cell phone to live, meanwhile you have to keep eating.

What I worry about is logistics. If you're not at the front of the line, expect to wait for 2-3 hours, as most Apple stores will probably only be able to activate 100-150 phones per hour.
 
gianly1985 said:
Breaking news from Italy!!! :D
"Vodafone Italia" will sell, besides contract-bond 3g iphones, also (legally) UNLOCKED 3g iphones WITHOUT ANY CONTRACT OR MONTHLY FEE for these prices:

8gb ------> 499euros (778$)

16gb ------> 569euros (887$)


Contract, bills, stick to only one operator, that's no matter any longer for me. :D (and without loosing the warranty)
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Source?
 
Gasu E. said:
Hard to tell. Is Russia not a big grey gloomy morose country with a high rate of alcoholism?
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I'm don't live in Russia (But am related to Russian's) but when I have been there yes alcoholism is a small problem not as big as it used to be and the country certainly isn't a grey gloomy morose country,
 
matttrick said:
up until now we did have the choice of buying the iphone to use elsewhere. what is with your lack of comprehension? spare us your analogies. it isnt like a restaurant or anything else. it is what it is. until now we could buy the iphone for use on t-mobile. now we can't. we aren't allowed to be dissatisfied? rofl. yes, we actually are.
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Except you are dissatisfied because something that Apple did not promise to you was taken away. I understand the frustration, but you never had a promise or expectation that Apple was going to support unlockers forever and ever. They've tried blocking the unlocks and jailbreaks in software updates, and now AT&T stepped in as well. It sucks if you were depending on that, but since Apple has never said they'd operate otherwise I guess you're SOL.

I think you need to realize that there's a huge difference between actively supporting multiple carriers and an underground movement supporting multiple carriers. With the latter, you've got to operate under the assumption that as the business and software changes, you might lose what you've created and be forced to start over. No one promised and took it away, you took it without any guarantees and are now pissed off about it.

.Joel said:
There are some naive people in the world, and you have just landed yourself in the top 5%.

This is not a restaurant. Anyway if you would like to get your analogy accurate, the food is being pre-cooked & delivered to your restaurant. Previously we could order and have home delivery, now we are being forced to go and not only purchase the food, but sit in and eat it in a place we don't want to.

Regards,

.Joel
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Except almost every other mobile phone in the United States is sold in a similar fashion to the iPhone. No one has promised you an iPhone on your terms, only on the terms of the corporation producing it. Whether or not you like it, that has always been what was presented. The corporations have the right to change the rules, and the best weapon you have to fight back is to choose not to work with them. Bitching and moaning about how you can't unlock it doesn't change the fact that Apple never promised you an unlocked iPhone and has no obligation to provide one to you.
 
Intarweb said:
$30 includes ZERO messages. $5 more for 200 messages bringing up the monthly additional fee to $15.
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The news just gets worse and worse.

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2009: "58% of people said they didn't get the iPhone 3G because of cost."
 
I don't understand what all the bitching about the $30 is about. Does any other carrier offer 3G service for less? Does at&t offer it on other phones for less? I've been looking around and I don't think I saw any cheaper prices for other phones. It's faster service so I would expect it to be more expensive than 2.5G. It sucks, but it doesn't seem like it's unfair (unless some else is offering 3G for cheaper and I didn't see it).
 
oclor said:
I don't understand what all the bitching about the $30 is about. Does any other carrier offer 3G service for less? Does at&t offer it on other phones for less? I've been looking around and I don't think I saw any cheaper prices for other phones. It's faster service so I would expect it to be more expensive than 2.5G. It sucks, but it doesn't seem like it's unfair (unless some else is offering 3G for cheaper and I didn't see it).
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T-Mobile is $19.99 a month I believe.
 
hope this means they will have MORE PHONES IN THE FRIGGIN STORES
so they don't totally sell out on day 1
 
I spoke to an ATT rep yesterday about the 3G iPhone. I'm a college student so when I originally bought the first iPhone, i didn't have a need for the data services when I was in school so I got rid of it, and just added texts to my plan. I have Wi Fi all over campus and in my apartment and ride to campus is 5 minutes so I never had a use for it. So when I called the ATT rep, I told him if that could be applied again to the 3G iPhone (I am unlocking my Iphone and selling it for twice as much as the new 3G iPhone). He told me it was possible to get rid of the data and just add texts. He told me when I go to buy the iPhone at the ATT store, they'll force you to put the data plan, just call ATT customer service and have them talk to the store rep and they'll keep my plan currently under the new iPhone or they could get reported. I don't know if this is true but that's what he told me, and he seemed to know alot about Iphones and the new 3G iPhone. He said store reps could be reported if they force customers to get the data plan if they didn't have it before. again I don't know how much of this is true but ima try it out when the Iphone 3g comes out... Just in case anyone is wondering why I would even get the 3G phone, its cuz i just want the new one out and i like the form factor, similar to my macbook air. and plus if i get to keep my current plan, then I get back 200+ after selling the first one
 
oclor said:
I don't understand what all the bitching about the $30 is about. Does any other carrier offer 3G service for less? Does at&t offer it on other phones for less? I've been looking around and I don't think I saw any cheaper prices for other phones. It's faster service so I would expect it to be more expensive than 2.5G. It sucks, but it doesn't seem like it's unfair (unless some else is offering 3G for cheaper and I didn't see it).
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you said it perfectly really, for lack of better terms, it just sucks, but it isnt unfair at all, its just the fact of going from a regular phone like I am to this is a big jump over the long term. I have 14.99 media works (1500 msgs) and its gonna be 40 it seems (correct me if im wrong) to get 1500 msgs since 200 is way too low. thats 25 more a month for ppl that want to jump from regular cell to iphone.
 
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