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M.Capz

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 16, 2005
42
0
Ok, so you plunk down the $500 or $600 bucks.....:eek:
How much do you think the monthly fee will cost? I was looking into getting a Blackjack, and they want me to pay for a voice plan $40, AND a PDA plan which is an extra $30 or $40 bucks. You think this will be the same deal for the iPhone? Do you have to have a PDA plan, or did I do something wrong?
 
Cingular usually has rate plans (in the US) as follows:

450 min: $39.99
950 min: $59.99
1350 min: $79.99

Data plans (on top of that) are usually around $44.99 for Unlimited data (a smart plan for all of the internet-rich features of the iPhone)

Lots o' money...
 
Thats ridiculous.....Almost $100 bucks a month. So I'm guessing this is the same deal with the BlackJack, or any smart phone for that matter from Cingular?
 
Thats ridiculous.....Almost $100 bucks a month. So I'm guessing this is the same deal with the BlackJack, or any smart phone for that matter from Cingular?

I don't think anyone else is drastically cheaper... to really use a phone like this one, you need mad bandwidth and the phone has to be free to use it. If you played around with a smartphone plan from pretty much any other US carrier, that gave you a large amount of monthly data xfer, I don't think you'd get much under $80.

How does pricing in Europe work? For the sake of comparison, say you....

- Have a phone usage profile of some, say, 600-700 minutes of calling, with about 75% out of your home country to somewhere else in the EU (that's pretty analogous to my calling behaviors)

- And then add to that something like...what's reasonable? 1 GB a month of data transfer? If unlimited is not available?

How much would that cost for a typical EU GSM plan?
 
Cingular has their smartphone connect unlimited plan for $20 and pda connect unlimited for $40. Not sure what the iPhone will be classified as, but either way it's a deal killer at the moment. I'd pay $500, but an additional even $20/month is just too much.
 
I don't think anyone else is drastically cheaper... to really use a phone like this one, you need mad bandwidth and the phone has to be free to use it. If you played around with a smartphone plan from pretty much any other US carrier, that gave you a large amount of monthly data xfer, I don't think you'd get much under $80.

T-Mobile has much cheaper plans and unlimited data (for blackberries) for 20 bucks a month.
 
Cingular has their smartphone connect unlimited plan for $20 and pda connect unlimited for $40. Not sure what the iPhone will be classified as, but either way it's a deal killer at the moment. I'd pay $500, but an additional even $20/month is just too much.
You still have to buy a voice plan, correct? Whats the cheapest voice plan you can get?
 
T-Mobile has much cheaper plans and unlimited data (for blackberries) for 20 bucks a month.

Okay, so with adequate voice services, $65-70 a month? I guess that is a little better. Does the plan include SMS sent from cell phones to the phone number, or is that an extra cost?

I ultimately just dropped data services on my T-Mo phone, but then it's not the smartest phone in the bunch. :p Cutest, though! ;)
 
The $40 per month plan mentioned earlier, which I believe has 450 anytime minutes and 5000 nights and weekends.

So you're potentially looking at a minimum cost of $60 + a bunch of silly fees and taxes.

You still have to buy a voice plan, correct? Whats the cheapest voice plan you can get?
 
Okay, so with adequate voice services, $65-70 a month? I guess that is a little better. Does the plan include SMS sent from cell phones to the phone number, or is that an extra cost?

Yes, Across the networks right now, they are charging outrageous rates for txting
(prices addtional per month, sent/recieved)
Sprint
300 txt -$5.00
1000 txt -$10.00
Unlimited txt -$15.00

Tmobile
400 txt -$4.99
1000 txt -$9.99
Unlimited txt -$14.99

Cingular
200 txt -$4.99
3000 txt -$19.99

Verizon (unlimited "IN" messaging)
500 txt -$10.00
1000 txt -$15.00
2500 txt -$20.00
 
Mind you, you don't need to worry much about a large data plan with the iPhone. It has wi-fi built-in. You don't always need to be connected to Cingular's network. That's why I'll only get a small data plan for the iPhone.
 
If apple hypothetically allows a skype client to be installed would we only need the data part of the plan? Does cingular even allow you to just sign up for data without any minutes?
 
Mind you, you don't need to worry much about a large data plan with the iPhone. It has wi-fi built-in. You don't always need to be connected to Cingular's network. That's why I'll only get a small data plan for the iPhone.

i heard somebody saying with iPhone u will have to subscribed to a $80/m plan.

and I do think ppl need to think about cingular's internet service charge. altho iPhone can use Wi-Fi, but most time, when u have Wi-Fi available, u probably has a laptop at hand too.

If apple hypothetically allows a skype client to be installed would we only need the data part of the plan? Does cingular even allow you to just sign up for data without any minutes?

data plan is more expensive than talking minutes plan. and I dont think cingular offers data plan alone.
 
data plan is more expensive than talking minutes plan. and I dont think cingular offers data plan alone.

Shoot... it'd be awesome if they did.

I think apple should have partnered with skype on this phone. Visual voicemail, and all of the other new features would have probably been easier to implement with VoIP instead of a traditional cellular phone carrier. The phone would also then be carrier independent.

I guess that cingular is probably going to be subsidizing the cost of the phone with the two year contract and apparently wouldn't offer just a data plan... it sure would have been cool though.
 
I think its going be like when you buy a Sidekick 3, you have to have a data plan. I pretty sure Cingular isn't going to charge 20 bucks like T-Mobile does though. When I spec'd out a BlackJack from Cingular, they made me pick a data plan.
 
Skype support is the kicker

If apple hypothetically allows a skype client to be installed would we only need the data part of the plan? Does cingular even allow you to just sign up for data without any minutes?


Every big question mark for me with the iPhone comes back to 3rd party support (with Applish characteristics). How dissimilar is this "OS X" from the real deal ? Cingular has to hate the idea of wifi (imagine wimax ?¿?) cutting into their revenue. How does Cingular already handle Skype enabled PPCs ?
 
- Have a phone usage profile of some, say, 600-700 minutes of calling, with about 75% out of your home country to somewhere else in the EU (that's pretty analogous to my calling behaviors)

- And then add to that something like...what's reasonable? 1 GB a month of data transfer? If unlimited is not available?

How much would that cost for a typical EU GSM plan?

1 GB a month of data transfer? I seriously doubt it if you're not downloading lots of things onto your phone.

I don't think you really understand how often people in the EU text. I didn't use voice often, but I did send at least 150 text messages per month when I lived in England. Anyway, what I'm saying is that 700 minutes per month is a lot. It's around 23 minutes per day.
 
Shoot... it'd be awesome if they did.

I think apple should have partnered with skype on this phone. Visual voicemail, and all of the other new features would have probably been easier to implement with VoIP instead of a traditional cellular phone carrier. The phone would also then be carrier independent.

But then the phone would be $1000 and people would be complaining about price even moreso than today.

Apple will never win.
 
My brother was telling me that CNBC had the new guy AT&T has picked to head up Cingular (or whatever it is going to be rebranded as) on the other night.

He said all the rate plans will be changing and there will be new plans introduced exclusively for the iPhone. One of the analysts said most people won't be willing to spend $100 a month once they've dropped $500 on the phone and the guy said that he hopes to have a full voice, text, and web plan for the iPhone at around $49 a month.
 
My brother was telling me that CNBC had the new guy AT&T has picked to head up Cingular (or whatever it is going to be rebranded as) on the other night.

He said all the rate plans will be changing and there will be new plans introduced exclusively for the iPhone. One of the analysts said most people won't be willing to spend $100 a month once they've dropped $500 on the phone and the guy said that he hopes to have a full voice, text, and web plan for the iPhone at around $49 a month.

This is never an exclusive plan with low price. so, i guess that means $80/mon is probably right. lol:rolleyes:
 
My brother was telling me that CNBC had the new guy AT&T has picked to head up Cingular (or whatever it is going to be rebranded as) on the other night.

He said all the rate plans will be changing and there will be new plans introduced exclusively for the iPhone. One of the analysts said most people won't be willing to spend $100 a month once they've dropped $500 on the phone and the guy said that he hopes to have a full voice, text, and web plan for the iPhone at around $49 a month.
I doubt it. Cingular is going to treat the iPhone just like any other smartphone.

$80/month here I come.
 
Sprint Data Plans

Sprint in the US charges #20 a month for their unlimited in-phone data plan. If you want to be able to use the Treo as a modem, it goes to $40.

They also charge a total of $25-35 if you want SprintTV.

I've been on Sprint since 1999, but I am so frustrated with them I've been looking for an excuse to give them up. They covered Los Angeles better than anyone until the Nextel merger and now I get dropped calls and broken data connections anytime I am in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills, which is 2/3 of my workday.

The iPhone/Cingular, if they keep the $20 plan, is the most perfect solution. I just hope the calling portion of the bill is decent. I do about 2000 minutes a month in voice, 1000 in "primetime" and 1000 in Night/Weekend, and I only pay $68 a month. I do hope that Cingular comes close to that...
 
1 GB a month of data transfer? I seriously doubt it if you're not downloading lots of things onto your phone.

I don't think you really understand how often people in the EU text. I didn't use voice often, but I did send at least 150 text messages per month when I lived in England. Anyway, what I'm saying is that 700 minutes per month is a lot. It's around 23 minutes per day.

Sorry... I *do* understand how Europeans use text. I text with some of them. ;) I think rather that I did not explain my question well enough.

As far as the data aspect, though, I'm not talking about people doing what they're doing now in Europe. If you're going to do that, the Apple phone is rather a waste, isn't it? What I was asking is how European pricing for the equivalent service profile for an American using Apple's product how they appear to want you to use it would look.

Talking on a phone for ~20-30 minutes a day isn't strange here. I understand that that might be different there, although somehow I doubt every Euro has a profile of usage exactly like you. As far as the texts, that's somewhat more than I send (I send maybe 50 a month). But the texts are going to be a small part of what you could do with a phone like this... text bandwidth is low, but downloading songs, watching google video / youtube type of stuff, and surfing the (real) web is not.....

So, in other words, my point is that, if you try to use this phone on its actual features, high-speed internet access on it is going to be used a lot. And a gig monthly is probably not at all unreasonable. The 500-700 minutes is how much *I* talk to my friends on the phone. I just wanted to know how much that would cost if I lived in the EU instead of the US....
 
Here in the Netherlands, if you do have something like a Blackberry or a mobile GSM modem pcmcia card in your laptop, you'll have to pay about 75 Euro per month. This is without any data transfer. I see a lot of employees inour company who use these things when they are on a business trip. With data traffic, it's about 125 Euro per month.
 
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