Im still confused..I thought there were some things you couldnt do with just wifi and a voice plan..like texting and visual voicemail..i remember that was the case for the 2g iphone i think..has anything changed for the new iphone? and what happens to with used iphone 3g..will att require data plans for those?
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What is the data plan (not just wifi) required for?
- Thread starter cheezebob
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Im still confused..I thought there were some things you couldnt do with just wifi and a voice plan..like texting and visual voicemail..i remember that was the case for the 2g iphone i think..has anything changed for the new iphone? and what happens to with used iphone 3g..will att require data plans for those?
Go ahead get the iphone 3gs and tell them to cancel your data plan and used everything on wifi.
But be warned if your magically not on wifi and you used any part of the phone (data wise like gps, safari)besides texting or your phone then get ready for a big bill.
But be warned if your magically not on wifi and you used any part of the phone (data wise like gps, safari)besides texting or your phone then get ready for a big bill.
Nothing. As long as the SIM card is from the same phone company that sells the iPhone in your local area. Some older SIM cards may not work too - it need to be 3G aware. Most newer SIM cards are 3G aware.
Nope.
Jailbreaking has two benefits (that I know of).
- lets you use SIM cards from other phone companies to get cheaper rates.
- lets you load apps from independent companies that haven't gone through the Apple approval process.
AFAIK jailbroken iPhones can't have their OS upgraded via iTunes. (You can reset the iPhone via iTunes and reload your iTunes apps if you want to return it to a normal state) Upgrading a jaibroken phone means waiting for instructions to appear on the jailbreaking sites and then trying to follow them. It can be complicated.
Visual voicemail - I have no idea. Doesn't seem that useful anyway.
Texting does not depend on a dataplan. Use your brain man! There's billions of phones out there that do texting but have no dataplan. Texting's been round since before data plans were even dreamed of!
Yup, it's a short message, sent over the channels that usually carry telephone network control information. Invented in 1985, and first used in 1992.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS
Massive profit for the phone companies - 90-95% of the cost of a SMS is pure profit. Bit for bit, the most expensive form of data transmittance that most people will ever use. If you want to scare yourself, work out the cost of a gigabyte of data sent via SMS.
So no, it will not be part of the data plan. It could easily be nowadays, but the phone companies want to keep on charging you.
Visual Voicemail is extremely useful.
It's basically like having an email inbox for your voicemail messages.
Imagine, that when checking your email, you had to read each one in order of the most recent until you finally got to the one you were looking for.
I get tons of voicemails a day, Visual Voicemail helps me to prioritize which to listen to first.
