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AT&T Rolls Out Cheaper Unlimited Plans, iPhone Monthly Rate Drops $30

CalBoy said:
If you have 14k in minutes saved up, you really need a much lower plan. Look at your monthly usage and buy the plan that's closest to that. I'm guessing if you have 14,000 minutes saved up over the past 12 months, you are only using about 400 minutes monthly, so it may be wise to just drop down to the 450 plan until your pool of rollover minutes drops into the low hundreds, and then reanalyze how many minutes you actually need.

If you've been with ATT for a while, they are actually quite willing to be flexible with your plan and will often give you bonus minutes that can make your plan just right for your usage. Give them a call. :)
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good point - I originally went with the higher 1400 vs 700 minute plan because it was only $20 difference and I did not want to have to worry about getting close to running out of minutes. and at the time we signed up for our plan my wife's family was on verizon. they got jealous of the iphones and made the switch and now we barely use our minutes.

still glad to see AT&T responding with overall rate reductions even though it's currently only for the unlimited voice plan...
 
CalBoy said:
I don't really see the relevance here. Many people (if not most) already purchase unlimited texting plans. The problem most of us have with them is the cost. A carrier spends perhaps a few pennies per thousand texts, yet the price is very disproportionate to the actual cost. A 20 cent SMS, in terms of dollars per megabyte, is over $1300. That is simply absurd in pricing.
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What is really absurd is if all cell phone carriers allowed all the manufactures to build in 3rd party (yahoo, gmail, hotmail, etc) email support we could completely do away with text messaging. People who currently have both could dump the text plan and keep the data plan while people who currently have text plans can get data plans instead. But since everyone does not have email built into the software, we can not.
 
Why can't they offer a plan without direct internet access.
I love my iPhone....as a phone.
I never go on line.
It sucks I have to pay $360+ a year for something I don't use.
 
oldwatery said:
Why can't they offer a plan without direct internet access.
I love my iPhone....as a phone.
I never go on line.
It sucks I have to pay $360+ a year for something I don't use.
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you can canel your data plan any time if im not mistaken just go to your account and cancel data from what i know.
 
macfan881 said:
you can canel your data plan any time if im not mistaken just go to your account and cancel data from what i know.
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Odd, can anyone confirm this? Does that mean you literally don't get internet, or are you just hit with hefty per byte charges if an app or something else decides to use internet??

If true, might open up some options for family members who want an iphone but don't want to pay for the internet access.
 
Texting plans are the biggest scams in technology.

Fortunately, I have WhatsApp. Unfortunately, not everyone I text has an iPhone/WhatsApp.

Your texting plans make make hate you, AT&T.
 
jared_kipe said:
Odd, can anyone confirm this? Does that mean you literally don't get internet, or are you just hit with hefty per byte charges if an app or something else decides to use internet??

If true, might open up some options for family members who want an iphone but don't want to pay for the internet access.
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I really don't believe this is possible. Look on the AT&T website and try to add an iPhone to your cart. It says a data plan is required and can not be terminated.
 
QCassidy352 said:
It's unlimited voice and data for $99 total now. Now let's get those limited plan numbers down. Who needs unlimited when you have nights, weekends, AT&T wireless customers, and ten more free "A-list" numbers?
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My wife and I share the lowest plan AT&T has, 450 min/month, and we never use a tenth of those. What we'd really love is a 200 min/month plan or such, especially now that my employer won't let me expense charges without handing my number over to them.
 
jared_kipe said:
Odd, can anyone confirm this? Does that mean you literally don't get internet, or are you just hit with hefty per byte charges if an app or something else decides to use internet??.
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AT&T requires that 30 dollar a month iPhone data plan BUT you can turn off your iPhone (even better if you take that sim card and put it in a dumb phone then turn it on) then call AT&T and say your phone is lost so you no longer need the data plan. They will remove the plan but in order not to get charged with the pay as you go usage, you add the BLOCKWIX onto your plan. Bam iPhone with no data plan but you also do not have visual voicemail anymore nor do you get MMS.
 
NeuralControl said:
I really don't believe this is possible. Look on the AT&T website and try to add an iPhone to your cart. It says a data plan is required and can not be terminated.
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I know it "can" be terminated (at least by best buy employees ;))

I recently upgraded my moms phone with the upgrade eligibility from my line at a best buy. The BB employee basically "upgraded" my iPhone to an LG Xeon. Then he called up ATT to get the features all sorted out (add texting to my mom's phone, and put data/texting back onto my line). I had to talk to the ATT lady who didn't understand the situation very well, and refused to believe that my line had an iPhone data plan on it when I walked in. In fact she said it "wasn't possible."

Long story short, at least for a little while no icon (E or 3G) showed up next ATT in my iphone's status bar for the duration of my dealings in best buy.

So I know it to be POSSIBLE to loose the data plan, and better yet, ATT employees won't know it was ever there if done in this way.
 
Edit: Ryeno beat me to explaining this.

NeuralControl said:
I really don't believe this is possible. Look on the AT&T website and try to add an iPhone to your cart. It says a data plan is required and can not be terminated.
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You can't do it from the website from my experience, but you can call in and cancel or change a data plan at any time during your contract, and it doesn't affect your contract length. The "contract" just states that you are agreeing to keep voice service with them the length of the contract. To cancel the iPhone data plan however, you must have another non-smartphone (that works on AT&T's network) to put your SIM into, and write down the IMEI number to facilitate the next step. Then call AT&T and state that you have stopped using/sold your iPhone, and that you want to drop the data plan. They WILL ask you for the IMEI number of the phone that your SIM is in (this is why I stated to go ahead and write it down before calling) to verify that you have another phone that qualifies for not having a data plan. I believe that you can also at this point ask for them to place a data block on your account, so that your phone can't even connect to the internet even if you try. Once all this is done, place your SIM back in your iPhone and you should be set, just have no AT&T data network capabilities. I've swapped data plans/canceled data plans so many times over the life of my contract that I know this routine in and out. Never had a bit of trouble with what I spelled out above.
 
Anybody just try a mifi unit w that data plan (whazzit, like $60/mo) and iPod touch plus skype out (2.50/mo) service? Got the mrs a touch for Xmas and was impressed with the skype app. As is now we have a netgear skype wifi phone as the house phone, a $40 net service and two paygo boost phones at .10cents/min. We just pretend we're in 1991 and don't blab on the cell phone, if someone calls and we're going to be home soon we wait ... We're spending about $55 a month for two phones and cell moderation.
I ask about the mifi option, cause even if we both ran one each, our bill would be only $120/mo for two phones and able to use that at home with our computers without having to tether anything. Or am I being silly here?
 
Ryeno said:
AT&T requires that 30 dollar a month iPhone data plan BUT you can turn off your iPhone (even better if you take that sim card and put it in a dumb phone then turn it on) then call AT&T and say your phone is lost so you no longer need the data plan. They will remove the plan but in order not to get charged with the pay as you go usage, you add the BLOCKWIX onto your plan. Bam iPhone with no data plan but you also do not have visual voicemail anymore nor do you get MMS.
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wrong that does not work any more. ATT now scans for the IMEP number of the phones and if they see an iPhone they automaticly put the $30 a month charge on it. Big time if you tried the trick you listed.
 
yzp said:
when does Ted (Rogers™) will do the same thing for canada users??

I'm pissed of being ass-raped by him...
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I'd tell you to switch to Telus or Bell, but they're no better... even though they got the iPhone now. Oh, well. Maybe IF Wind gets it.
 
I think news like this will make people think iPhone is too expensive.

$100 a month for 1 phone, and it was $130. My family must think my bill is $500.

I have 2 iPhones on my account, plus a cheap Samsung phone as my iPhone signals suck. Total 3 phones - $117 including tax each month.

No, I don't have "unlimited minutes," but I don't need them.
 
LagunaSol said:
Your texting plans make make hate you, AT&T.
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At those prices, I'm not surprised. Over here I have three options:

1. Send ad hoc for 20c each (US$0.15), free to receive
2. Can send up to 150 texts for $6/month (US$4.42), free to receive
3. Can send/receive unlimited for $12/month (US$8.85)

Commence weeping :p
 
Yeah, this is EXACTLY what we were all clamoring for! I mean everybody complains about the price of calling plans. :(

Fail, AT&T and Verizon. We want tiered data plans! I just checked and I have used about 250MB of data over 3G this month. Why should I have to pay as much as the people YouTubing all day and closing in on the 5GB "it's not a cap but it kinda is?"

Don't get me wrong, I know that I signed up for this and it's not like AT&T is screwing me. But the lack of data options is beyond annoying -- yes, across the board. It's even more of a punishment to not give me any free texts like the original iPhone plan did. I know it's different, but why in the bloody hell should I pay for text messages with unlimited data?

Oh, and I have more than 3,000 rollover minutes. Pardon my yelling, but WHAT GOOD IS AN UNLIMITED PLAN TO ME? For all those people who sheepishly say "competition is good," explain to me why you can't get tiered data with any phone in the US. That's why the Verizon deal won't mean squat. It'll just mean two companies charging pretty much the same thing for the same service. Woo.
 
You pay too much

I'm in Portugal.

Unlimited calls, texts and instant messaging for numbers on my network: 10€ (5€ for students) - 20c/minute for numbers on other networks
512MB data a month: 15€ (6c/MB after the 512MB)


I don't use data on my phone because there's always wi-fi nearby. Almost everyone has two phones, or a phone with two SIM cards, one on each of the most used networks.

So, I pay 5€/month for unlimited calls, texts and messenger to most people I know. If I had an iPhone I'd pay 20€.


130 dollars? Geesh, you pay a lot. The most expensive iPhone plan here is 70€ with unlimited everything (except data, which has a 512MB limit).
 
It's worse then you think. The best way to describe american system is... The PAYG or prepaid system is complete crap because it uses the same 'bolt-ons' as a normal plan.

So if you want 1500 (750 sent/received) messages thats 15 dollars. Then if you want data, you have no choice but unlimited so add another 30 dollars to your plan. Then when it comes to voice;well the PAYG plans do not work with the iPhone so 40 for lowest voice 450min plan. So 40+15+30 = 85 a month for basic service. So as you can see if you actually use your cell phone for voice a lot, especially with people on other carriers, you are better off just getting the 130 unlimited plan.

Oh but this is all for 1 person. If you have a family, the unlimited plans cost like a extra 50-100 dollars per line. So in that case it is almost never affordable to go unlimited and the data plans keep stacking since they are per line. So a family with a couple iPhones, unlimited text and a plan where they can actually talk a good amount of time can easily cost 200 dollars or more a month.
 
smells like...

desperation.

Looks like it's a done deal that the iPhone exclusivity ends this year. Why else would they drop their rates SO LOW when they have resisted being reasonable for SO LONG.

I hope AT&T goes down in flames when the iPhone is available to other carriers.

:apple: FTW
 
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