Need Advice: Iphone as a GoPhone

[HeadRusch]

I've been a gophone user for many years now, had the same SIM in my old Razor V3 for a couple years now, my wife's gophone number is even older. We aren't big cell users, in fact I've put $100 on the phone and six months later had $50 left...although when you start sending texts that cost starts to go up at 20 cents a message sent/received.

I own an ipod touch, and I've been carrying around the Touch and my Razor...only the razor is dying and its nice to be able to send some texts or check email when you aren't near a wifi signal, and of course...carrying around 2 chargers, etc...truly sucks.

But I'd like an iphone...what I don't need is an iphone cell plan at $40 a month. With the calls I make, I might use $10 a month, it just happens that several of the people i talk with are also on ATT..and that means those calls are free.

SO:
I'm thinking of selling the ipod touch and buying an iphone 3GS.

Can I simply take my old SIM cards out of my existing motorola and samsung gophones and pop them into a couple of purchased-on-ebay 3GS iphones (I'd buy 2 GS's, one for me and one for the wife)

IF that can be done, what about a data plan? I mean the iphone is feature rich, and while I don't care about using the GPS, what about getting emails, texting, using AIM instant messenger...looking up movie times or finding the address to a restaurant.....does that all count against my gophone minutes or does it require the purchase of a data plan for the iphone? In other words...what can/can't I do using it as a GoPhone, and if I want to use it more, can I get something like a $25 data plan per month. And just use the gophone minutes as required for talking...

I need to know what will work, what wont..and what my options are.

Thank you all for whatever information you can give me, its appreciated in advance!

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Can I simply take my old SIM cards out of my existing motorola and samsung gophones and pop them into a couple of purchased-on-ebay 3GS iphones (I'd buy 2 GS's, one for me and one for the wife)

Yes

IF that can be done, what about a data plan? I mean the iphone is feature rich, and while I don't care about using the GPS, what about getting emails, texting, using AIM instant messenger...looking up movie times or finding the address to a restaurant.....does that all count against my gophone minutes or does it require the purchase of a data plan for the iphone? In other words...what can/can't I do using it as a GoPhone, and if I want to use it more, can I get something like a $25 data plan per month. And just use the gophone minutes as required for talking...

All that will count against your data.

The 2GB for $25 is only available on the official post-paid iPhone plan. Payg isn't supported which means it's either

$0.01 per KB
or
1 MB - $4.99
100 MB - $19.99

and even then I am not fully sure the gophone data plans work with the iPhone, like you might need to change the apn settings.

 

[HeadRusch]

Thank you for the reply.

Followup: If I were to pay $19.99 for a PayG data plan, 100megs, I'm really talking about turning off notifications, only checking emails and doing sms when I choose to, and hoping that I don't get any huge pictures in my email that the phone will try to transfer...

If all I was doing for "data" was using facebook, email.....I could probably get by on 100megs. Maybe a few brief web-page visits (not like..posting to forums or picture browsing, etc) 100megs/mo might be feasable...

I guess that is the dangerous part...doing something on your iphone that would inadvertently start to suck the life out of my pre-paid dollars...

But really, i'd love to have some music, my apps, my book-reading and still be able to receive calls and in a pinch be able to use the web....

Dumb Question: does using something like yahoo chat count towards data??

Thanks again.

 

[ToroidalZeus]

Followup: If I were to pay $19.99 for a PayG data plan, 100megs, I'm really talking about turning off notifications, only checking emails and doing sms when I choose to, and hoping that I don't get any huge pictures in my email that the phone will try to transfer...

If all I was doing for "data" was using facebook, email.....I could probably get by on 100megs. Maybe a few brief web-page visits (not like..posting to forums or picture browsing, etc) 100megs/mo might be feasable...

I think that's really wishful thinking.

My dad only knows how to check his email and only does that occasionally uses about 25mb a month.

For someone like you how actually knows how to use facebook, post on a forum or even do the quick google search for something, 100mb just isn't going to cut it. You'll feel like you are paying a ton for absolutely nothing (which you are)

Dumb Question: does using something like yahoo chat count towards data??

SMS and MMS are the only things that don't count against data.

 

[HeadRusch]

I think you are right

I think you may be right.....I'm reconsidering this.

 

[Fernandez21]

I think you may be right.....I'm reconsidering this.

You can always switch to a post paid account I you do need more data, and since you already have the phones you won't need to sign a contract.

 

[HeadRusch]

Sorry, if I already have the phone I wont have to sign a contract?

Oh so I can sign up for a post-paid account and there wont be any early termination fee if I decide to cancel because I wont have to stick with the service for 2 years (aka: to get the cheap price on the phone)....have I got that about right?

 

[Alaerian]

Sorry, if I already have the phone I wont have to sign a contract?

Oh so I can sign up for a post-paid account and there wont be any early termination fee if I decide to cancel because I wont have to stick with the service for 2 years (aka: to get the cheap price on the phone)....have I got that about right?

That's correct in theory. Give AT&T Customer Support a phone call tomorrow and verify before you purchase anything. With the launch of the original iPhone when you could purchase the device outright and unsubsidized, you went into the service contract free - they had no need to worry about getting any money back on the iPhone as you already owned it.

Nobody can tell you for certain until you verify with AT&T. They've been extremely helpful to me over the past several days for my own iPhone issue - I hope they extend the same good service to you!