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Anything that will save the consumers money, I am all for it. $10 is crap, but it is better than nothing.

This is just for the data plan. There's plenty of room for ATT to offer a minute reduced voice plan as well, so a drop of 15-20 USD a month is possible, if that's where ATT want to take things.
 
AT&T's intention will be that the cap will be small enough to be a real pain in the ass to encourage upgrading.

I'd bet on no more than 250MB, with no streaming allowed at all contractually.

Phazer

I wrote 1 GB above, but I'm starting to think you're right.

And you know what? I still like it. I use Wifi a LOT. I rarely use more than 150 GB in a month. So why shouldn't I pay less for staying off AT&T's network? I'd probably take this plan, even at 250 MB.

Just so long as Apple builds a better tracking system into the iPhone itself (not an app). Something where you can program it to pop up a message for every 50 MB you use, with a message every single MB for the last 3 MBs.

If I had that I'd feel very safe.
 
i think that they may leave the $20 plan unlimited for the iPhone and leave the $30 price point for unlimited data PLUS tethering.

**Insert Heath Ledger's Joker laugh**

Please don't tell me you think that's a possibility. First of all, there is no "leaving" of a $20 plan. That thing was only for the first-gen iPhone. As for the rest, AT&T is NOT going to reduce the price of any plan without slashing something. Right now if it were available, you'd be paying $30 for an iPhone plan and $30 to tether it. A more-limited data plan is definitely a possibility at a reduced price, but don't count on some price cut on tethering.
 
I just don't understand why this has been so slow to come up. This should have been an option from the beginning.

From the beginning, it was essentially a $40 phone plan, + $20 for unlimited data and 200 texts. With the iPhone 3G, the extra $20 jumped to $30 (matching most other data plans) and the texts were removed.

The $20 unlimited plan was what got me into the whole smart phone thing. Before the iPhone, for myself (and I feel like others must have been in the same boat), $30 on top of a $40 plan was simply too exorbitant for the common man and the the people who owned smart phones were executives whose data plans were paid for by their companies (and maybe the really rich).

To me, one of the revolutions of the iPhone was bringing affordable internet access to the common person. Until then, all of the cheap phones offered "data", but at least I stayed away for fear of high data rates. When the iPhone came out, it was the first consumer-oriented, mainstream, unlimited data only device. You were enticed into using all of the data functions because there was no data cap and no danger of encountering super high data charges if you reached some cap or had no data plan to begin with (well, I guess except if you left the country).

I say (knowing it won't happen), restore the iPhone to what it was- consumer oriented. Bring the price back down to $20 per month (with texts too!) and don't bring back the tricky game of complicated, trap-ridden data plans-keep it unlimited.
 
Hey AT&T, how about getting rid of the ridiculous charges for text messages too? With my current plan (original iPhone), I get 200 messages included with my $20/month data plan. Once I go 3G, I'll pay $30 a month and get 0 text messages. I'll have to pay an extra $5 to get my 200 messages again, taking my monthly increase to $15. Lame. Very lame.

I absolutely agree. Texting uses almost no network resources. This just doesn't make any sense on AT&T's part (apart from the blatant grab for cash). Rather than lowering the data charge by $10 a month, how about giving us unlimited texting? I'd be happy with that.
 
Damn... just bought a Blackberry Bold, lol. I dont like paying £150 for a phone o_O
 
What would the monthly limit look like? Say a 1 GB cap on data usage?

If I could figure out how ATT tracks their data usage then I might be more interested in going to a cap to save some money.
Knowng that I downloaded 4 or 5 movies via 3G which totaled well over a gig but my bill is only showing 167,953 Kb
 
I would whole heartedly welcome less expensive, tiered data plans. Currently I do not use my iPhone's 3G cellular network enough to justify the $360+tax annual plan as I tend to use WiFi. A $10 plan with limited data would be perfect as WiFi takes most of the data I send/receive. Bring it on. :)
 
AT&T already has a $20 data plan: EDGE. It's what I use on my iPhone 1G, and I'm perfectly happy with it (or I would be if AT&T coverage were a little better). If Apple wants to lower the barrier to entry, just give customers the option to go EDGE-only. (Get AT&T to offer some voice plans with fewer minutes as well, and you'll see lots of less-chatty users flocking to the iPhone.)
 
i would buy an iphone if they lower the monthly price. I don't think i would have a problem with a limited amount of data since i would prefer the wifi access anyway due to less-than-stellar 3G performance.
 
I only wish canada got better data plans. We have $25 for 500mb.... or $15 for 2mb.......

So true. The only thing preventing me from getting an iPhone is the ridiculous prices for data plans in Canada. Once you add on a decent voice plan and the monthly bill goes right over my budget. Darn recession!
 
One of the things AT&T would need to do is allow people to easily check how much data transfer they have left. They have the AT&T app for the phone but it doesn't specify data transfer (just minutes and txts).

My AT&T app tells me how much data I've used... There's a tab on that screen that lets you toggle between minutes & text and data usage... I average about 125 MB a month, I didn't really care to look at that until I got the app...
 
text messages are the real issue here

I'm willing and happy to pay for unlimited internet with NO data caps for $30. ATT is influencing though against companies writing apps to work over 3G/Edge. Example being Slingbox. A very small minority of iPhone owners also have a Slingbox, but ATT's network is too unstable to allow it. Being a Chicago resident, I can tell you that ATTs network here is very unstable. Many times the internet stops working, not to mention that I have no signal in my house.

All that being said, the $20 dollars for unlimited text messages is frankly a scam. I can't believe that they can charge that AFTER you already have an unlimited data plan. Frankly, I used to think using over 1500 texts in a month(that is the other option ATT offers for texting, as well as 200) was silly, but after several months of actually going over 1500, I knew better.

You can be quite sure that when my 2 yr with ATT is up, if things haven't improved, I will be unlocking without hesitation.
 
This.

I just checked my data usage for last billing cycle and I was around 100MB. And while I don't spend all day surfing the net on my phone, I do use it a lot. I would expect the cap to be somewhere between 50 and 200MB. AT&T risks losing too much revenue if they set the cap too high.

One of the things AT&T would need to do is allow people to easily check how much data transfer they have left. They have the AT&T app for the phone but it doesn't specify data transfer (just minutes and txts).

Doubt it. People don't know how much they use until they've already got the contract, so they'll balk at anything that "sounds low".
 
i dont know why people are all over this like its a big deal. $20 should more than cover data costs considering youre charging a seperate fee for texting still at $20 for unlimited. in addition you're still charging 39.99 for 450 minutes which is virtually at what prepaid places charge these days. most major carriers are adding better valued unlimited plans even without contract. att is far behind and the network just keeps getting worse.

i've owned each iphone since about 2 months after they first came out and at this point i'd almost prefer to have a virgin mobile phone unlimited plan for $49.99 and an ipod touch instead of my iphone.
 
So true. The only thing preventing me from getting an iPhone is the ridiculous prices for data plans in Canada. Once you add on a decent voice plan and the monthly bill goes right over my budget. Darn recession!

HAHA as a cell phone store manager I think one of the funniest things is how so many people pay for "unlimited" or the highest plan possible and only use a fraction of that. We see tons of people buy 2000 min plans that only use 500 min, or people that want unlimited data that only use 400MB a month, or people that want unlimited texting and only do 1000 texts a month, or blackberry owners that want a 3gig data plan and barely pass the 10MB mark on their plans.

Maybe if consumers actually knew what they used they wouldn't always want unlimited. Unlimited isn't something you actually use, it's just a word that makes you feel good about your plan.
 
Come on Rogers give us Canadians better data plans! Maybe offer that 6GB/$30 plan again for a time period.

Please Rogers? Please?
 
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