How to get the iphone working without a data plan?

Impossible.

 

Nothing you can do if you're on post paid plan. With prepaid AT&T sims you dont need data but with montly plans their system will detect you're using an iphone without a data plan and will send you a text that it has been added to your account.
You might get lucky and get away with it for a while but they eventually will figure it out.

 

Agreed. If you are a post-paid customer, they will add it on.

 

You may be able to just stick a SIM card in your iPhone but eventually they'll find out, it could be months though. You could always go the GoPhone way, I do this for my sister and she doesn't use data and just $.10 a minute. I pay around $15 a month because she does have text.

 

What Applejuiced said above. I've used my iPhone 4 without data for ~30 days and counting as of now just fyi, but they will catch me sometime

 

While tmobile is still its own company you can always port your number with them. They don't require data plans.

 

Can't you buy an unlocked iPhone from another country and use it without a data plan?

 

AT&T would STILL detect it and apply a plan to your account.

 

It doesnt make any difference if the iphone is locked or unlocked.
Their system will detect its an iphone acessing their network without a data plan.

 

I thought they had a list of IMEI numbers of iPhones, and they add a plan when they detect one of those phones. I was thinking (based partly on posts here) that they don't have the IMEI numbers of foreign phones, and they wouldn't automatically add a data plan since they don't know it is an iPhone. Though I'm sure AT&T with their crazy tethering detection methods could also detect an iPhone in other ways if they wanted to.

 

You can give it a shot but dont know how accurate those claims are.
I dont think its a list of IMEI's but the system recognizing its an iphone 4 or 3GS for example. If you stick your sim in a foreign phone that AT&T doesnt even sell their system still recognizes what kind of phone it is as far as brand and model and it is displayed on your AT&T account details page within minutes.
Same thing with a foreign iphone.

 

I used an iPhone for months and months without them changing my plan. That was two years ago. I have the unlimited plan now though.

 

I have an iPhone 4
4.1 jailbroken
1.59.00 baseband so I am unlocked
I got the phone on craigslist
Went into AT&T without the pone and said I wanted a prepaid sim.
You have to have a minimum of like $10 on there so I did that. They gave me the sim card.
I went home and cut it to fit in the iPhone 4 (they won't sell microsim)
Put it in my unlocked iPhone and it has been working for 7 months.
Each month I simply add $60 on the prepaid card and buy the $60 unlimited talk and text plan and I get unlimited calling and texting without data on my iPhone 4
This has been working for 7 months no problems/texts from AT&T