Just use a GoPhone SIM. No data plan requirements, but if you don't add a data package there will be no internet services enabled on the phone.
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[AT&T] is it legal to use the iPhone without a data plan?
- Thread starter 212rikanmofo
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what others have been saying, once you put the SIM back into the smart phone AT&T will know. I switched from a iphone to a galaxy s3 to a nexus and apple knew all of the phones I had minus the nexus.
Just because ATT knows doesn't mean they'll automatically add a data plan right away. It takes weeks to months usually
Well I did this for a year with my iPhone 3GS. They never added data. I was switching my sim card from iphone to,dumb phone at night.
Many have done it in the past and failed. AT&T eventually detects it.
Im sure noone wants to be switching the sim to a dumbphone every single day.
Yeah, her brother has had it for about 5 months now with no data and she's had it for a month with no data. They simply don't need it right now. Everywhere they go they have wifi. But with our plan, I always get a notification if I try to put my sim into say a skyrocket that you need an eligible data plan.
One year and counting for the 3GS I gave my son. Make sure to turn off all data on the phone, but you can still use wifi.
"Without Contracts"...
Does that mean they're using conventional post-paid service on a month-to-month basis?
Or are they using the separate GoPhone or Prepaid service?
GoPhone is governed by a different TOS than AT&T's conventional post-paid. Unlike the conventional service, GoPhone's TOS doesn't currently contain any language which would force you to subscribe to a data plan. They explicitly state that smartphones are not eligible for pay-per-use data, and that a data plan add-on is required if you want to use any data on such smartphones. But they do not go further and state that the data plan add-on is a necessary precondition to subscribing to the baseline service.
AT&T legally cannot compel you to switch you over to the conventional service (where a data plan add-on really would be mandatory) without obtaining your prior consent to effectively open up a brand new account under the conventional service.
Someday, they may revise the GoPhone TOS to include mandatory data plans. But that is not the case today.
They're post paid but have not upgraded their phones or contracts in quite a long time. Usually they just get phones from their dad's company.
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But that makes sense. If when you signed up for ATT postpaid, there was nothing in the TOS saying that you had to sign up for a contract with a smartphone, could they legally force you to sign up for you? If you upgraded your phone and your new contract had stipulations like that in there, then that makes sense. But say you haven't signed a new contract since 2007 or something, they can't force you to have a data plan with a smartphone.
Certainly they'd want to check the original wording of the agreement they entered into.
But wireless carriers typically insert a clause in their postpaid TOS that spells out a procedure by which the carrier can get permission to revise the terms; and, given at least one billing cycle's advance notice of such changes (during which time customers are given an opportunity to peruse the new TOS and have the option to discontinue their service if they disagree), the carrier has permission to transition all remaining customers (ie. all those who chose not to cancel their accounts) over to the new version of the TOS.
Effectively, this means that every current postpaid AT&T customer ought to assume that they are, in fact, bound by the current revision of the postpaid TOS.