iPhone without data plan!HELP!

1) This is easy: The early termination option would apply to the whole account, including the voice plan. You'd also lose your phone number unless you'd previously ported it over to a different service.

2) This ought to be easy too: Your credit score should only be negatively affected by having total available credit that significantly outstrips your income, or else by having any accounts in arrears. The first consequence would be caused by applying for too many credit cards or other forms of debt. The second consequence would be caused by failing to make on-time payments in full for any bills you receive.

In theory neither situation should come about purely as a consequence of using the early termination option of your cell phone contract, provided you pay your final phone bill and ETF in a timely fashion. But you should probably inquire about this directly with your credit report bureau to get their take on the issue.

3) If you have an iPhone on any AT&T plan, AT&T's official policy is that you must have a data plan too. It doesn't matter if the iPhone was subsidized or not, or if you bought it directly from AT&T or 2nd hand from somebody else, etc. If it's an iPhone, and it's on AT&T's network, you are required to have a data plan. They've recently started cracking down on this, sending text messages to iPhone users who don't have the correct data plan and advising them that corrective action will be taken.

In practice, it appears that they've simply been shutting off all forms of data until the customer contacts customer service to re-activate the correct data plan. In theory, though, AT&T has the authority to automatically add the appropriate data plan to any account that is servicing an iPhone, behind the customer's back.

4) Even if you bought the iPhone under the "no-commitment" pricing, the instant you activated the phone on AT&T's network, you'd still be required to use the designated data plan. The only difference would be that you would be allowed to terminate your entire service (including voice) right away for free, instead of paying an ETF or waiting for 2 years

Another option, though, might be to use the phone on AT&T's prepaid service. There is no current "eligible" data plan available for such phones under the prepaid service. In all likelihood, you'd want to hack the phone to disable all forms of data entirely, to avoid the pay-per-use charges you'd otherwise face.

You'd still have to get the phone somewhere. You cannot buy the phone as a prepaid device directly from AT&T. You could ether buy it on contract from AT&T and pay the ETF to get out of the contract, or else buy it second hand. And I think you would have to hack the phone (jailbreak it) in order to use it with prepaid service.

5) If you buy it refurb through AT&T, the same policy of paying an early termination fee to cancel the contract within the first 2 years would still apply.

 

The previous poster covered a lot of ground. He is right, but there is an easy way to avoid data plans he didn't mention. Ditch AT&T. I'm using a small local gsm carrier with 2 iPhones. Total bill for unlimited talk is $60 a month.