ATT price change perhaps?

[gizabo]

Ok, i have an iPhone 1st gen... And i love it. The sad thing is, its on its deathbed. I mean the thing is all cracked, has dead pixles everywhere, and freezes 24/7... (might i add its hacked for t-mobile)

Now, i was talking to my dad, and he finnally said yes to switch to ATT, once the new iphone comes out in june... The price of the phone is not a problem, but its the SERVCE cost thats keeping me from getting it! I talk and text alot... I would have to limit myself to getting 900 minuts and only 200 txt messages for $95!!!!! THATS INSANE!

Do you think att will drop their prices once the 3rd gen is out?

 

[Small White Car]

Are you near Wi-Fi a lot?

If so, you can get Skype service for an extra $2.95 a month and get the Skype app on your phone. You can call people using that as much as you want. This will let you downgrade to the 450 minute AT&T plan which will free up money for unlimited texting.

Here's the details:

1) Skype only works on Wifi. You need to be VERY careful about trying to make as many calls as you can when near Wifi to save your AT&T minutes.

2) For all intents and purposes, It only works for outgoing calls. If your friend calls your AT&T number while you're on wifi, get used to saying "let me call you right back on Skype." Better yet, train your friends to text you with a "call me" so you don't even waste that 1 minute on AT&T.

3) Find out who your AT&T friends are so you know who is "free" to talk to. Also, learn when AT&T's night and weekend minutes start and end and make good use of them. (You only get 5,000 of these minutes on the lower plan, which leads to #4)

4) Start tracking the minutes you've talked every day or so (both the 'regular' 450 and 'night and weekend' 5,000) and make sure you stay in your numbers. If you start getting close, be sure to use Skype more since it's unlimited time for that $2.95 you've paid.

5) Since Skype won't alert you to incoming calls, don't let anyone have that number, EVER. You can mask the Skype number on caller-ID with your AT&T number, so if you call someone on Skype they see your AT&T number on their caller ID. You accomplish this setup with 'Skype Credits' which come in blocks of $10, so this is a one-time fee you'll have to pay to set this up when you first sign up.

6) Sad to say, the Skype address book integration doesn't work quite right. I've found I have to manually type numbers into Skype starting with "+1" to get them to work. I expect an update will fix this, but for now be aware of this silly problem.

So this plan depends on 1) being near wifi a fair amount and 2) being disciplined in using Skype when possible AND tracking your AT&T minutes online to know exactly what you've been using every day.

But it would let you afford unlimited texting and you'll STILL come out $2.05 cheaper even after paying your Skype bill.

Something to think about. It's not perfect, but it might be worth it.

 

[aok1975]

Ok, i have an iPhone 1st gen... And i love it. The sad thing is, its on its deathbed. I mean the thing is all cracked, has dead pixles everywhere, and freezes 24/7... (might i add its hacked for t-mobile)

Now, i was talking to my dad, and he finnally said yes to switch to ATT, once the new iphone comes out in june... The price of the phone is not a problem, but its the SERVCE cost thats keeping me from getting it! I talk and text alot... I would have to limit myself to getting 900 minuts and only 200 txt messages for $95!!!!! THATS INSANE!

Do you think att will drop their prices once the 3rd gen is out?

No they will not. ATT service, iphone or not is more expensive.

ATT 450min =$40
T-mobile 600min =$40

ATT 200 text =$5
T-mobile 400 text +$5

 

[psywzrd]

1) Skype only works on Wifi. You need to be VERY careful about trying to make as many calls as you can when near Wifi to save your AT&T minutes.

This is not true. If you jailbreak you can use Skype over 3G and Edge as well. If you do it this way the only minutes you'll end up using are when people call you since all of your outgoing minutes will be on Skype.

 

[MatLu]

I sure hope so, but it'll probably have to wait until the AT&T exclusivity is over.

 

[Legolai]

wait sorry to go off topic, but if people call you, it comes out of your minutes allowance that you pay for in your plan?

 

[kas23]

Don't be surprised if the actual price increases, as it did from the original to 3G.

 

[Michael CM1]

Do you really use 900 minutes/month? Actually, do you use 900 ANYTIME minutes per month? I mean you have to talk like a teenage girl to run through that stuff. I have about 4,000 rollover minutes sitting in my tank all the time.

My plan on the first gen is $100 with two other lines and no text messaging plan. I think the 3G is about $75/month without any texting for a single phone.

The only thing I see possible is tiered data plans. I'm assuming it would be $15, $30, and $45. Maybe the $45 plan adds tethering and a higher data cap (10GB?). The $15 plan maybe drops it to 2GB.

 

[dukebound85]

Do you really use 900 minutes/month? Actually, do you use 900 ANYTIME minutes per month? I mean you have to talk like a teenage girl to run through that stuff. I have about 4,000 rollover minutes sitting in my tank all the time.

thats so naive

just because you dont use 900 min doesnt mean that nobody else besides "teenage girls" do

 

[Sun Baked]

Yeah, some guys make teenage girls look like monks taking a vow of silence.

And you'd think those guys are only speaking because they believe their head would explode if they stopped talking for 5 minutes.

 

[Steve686]

Do you really use 900 minutes/month? Actually, do you use 900 ANYTIME minutes per month? I mean you have to talk like a teenage girl to run through that stuff. I have about 4,000 rollover minutes sitting in my tank all the time.

My plan on the first gen is $100 with two other lines and no text messaging plan. I think the 3G is about $75/month without any texting for a single phone.

The only thing I see possible is tiered data plans. I'm assuming it would be $15, $30, and $45. Maybe the $45 plan adds tethering and a higher data cap (10GB?). The $15 plan maybe drops it to 2GB.

WTH are you talking about in regards to 5gb, 2gb....and tiered data plans? The cap for 3G AND the LapTopConnect plans is 5gb. It is $60 a month for LapTopConnect. A change from the truly unlimited data it used to be...which is why I canceled the service. With the tethering option coming, I see some users running close to the cap and AT&T will give you an immediate reminder that there is a 5gb limit if you breach it. There is some variation on what they do after you breach more than one month, but on AT&T's forum, I've read about people getting service cancelled or throttled back.

To the OP.

You are going to have to ante up the $$$ for iPhone as it is not likely AT&T will drop their iPhone plans' prices. The only thing I thought they may do is try to bundle more text messages with each iPhone plan.

Here are the 3G plans:
Rate Plans Available
PLAN NAME MONTHLY COST ANYTIME MINUTE NIGHT/WKND MINUTE MOBILE TO MOBILE
Individual Nation Plans
Nation 450 w/Rollover® Minutes $39.99 450 5000 Unlimited
Nation 900 w/Rollover® Minutes $59.99 900 Unlimited Unlimited
Nation 1350 w/Rollover® Minutes $79.99 1350 Unlimited Unlimited
Nation Unlimited $99.99 Unlimited Unlimited Unlimited

Also. There are NO text messages included with the 3G plan. The prices are $5/200, $15/1500, and $20/unlimited.

Also, June is not a guaranteed release date of the Version 3, which isn't even officially announced. So take your chances either way.

 

[jblnks3]

Ok, i have an iPhone 1st gen... And i love it. The sad thing is, its on its deathbed. I mean the thing is all cracked, has dead pixles everywhere, and freezes 24/7... (might i add its hacked for t-mobile)

Now, i was talking to my dad, and he finnally said yes to switch to ATT, once the new iphone comes out in june... The price of the phone is not a problem, but its the SERVCE cost thats keeping me from getting it! I talk and text alot... I would have to limit myself to getting 900 minuts and only 200 txt messages for $95!!!!! THATS INSANE!

Do you think att will drop their prices once the 3rd gen is out?

Just look out for specials they have for new customers. I switch to ATT this summer and got a 1000 mins for 49.99. I got it at Radio Shack then took the phone back and went to a ATT store to get the iphone.