[oadesign]

No upgrade for me...I'll stick with my 2G iPhone and save my money. Besides, with the proliferation of WiFi, I'm not relegated to EDGE much as it is.
At first thought I assumed that the value of my 16GB iPhone had dropped by a huge percentage, but after hearing about the new data plans, I'm not so sure that's the case.
If Apple really wants to sell tons of these, they'd better reel in AT&T for more affordable plans.

[warlock7]

So, I just need to know if you can include an iPhone in a friends and family plan.

[woodworks]

I was planning on getting the new 3G iPhone and passing my old 2.5G iPhone to my wife. We currently pay $79 for our family plan with 550 minutes.
But if I get the new iPhone and we are forced to sign up for the new plan, I will be paying $129 AND losing text-messaging. Sure, we'd get another 150 minutes, but we rarely use the 550 we get now. So, let me get this straight. $50 more per month, AND we lose text messaging? For what? A GPS? AT&T is on crack! Sorry, no sale.

[nmpike]

Don't take his as gospel, but our ATT store says there MUST be a two year agreement.. no agreement, no phone.
I asked if I need to camp out, and she said they are anticipating a lot of "walk outs", because if you dont get a 2 year agreement, you don't get the phone.
The exception:
1) If you are an existing ATT customer and have had service over one year (which is a lot of us considering we got our iPhones on June 29th of last year), you can upgrade and just extend your existing contract.
2) If you have a phone that has NOT been activated for at least a year, you must pay the full price for the phone (which she thought was $200 more than advertised price).
So for me, my iPhone line will be $299 (for 16gb), and my second line which I got in May will require the whole $499 for the phone. Or I can open another phone line and get it for $299, but then I have three phones I am paying for. I'll eat the initial 200.
If you do NOT have an ATT phone, ATT will sign you up - however, be aware if you do not have great credit (and I mean even if you have a $5.00 late fee on your credit report for a missed CC payment), ATT will charge you a deposit.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico (home of "I dont pay my bills") she said the AVERAGE deposit on a new account is $500-$800. That would be in addition to buying the phone... it is for this reason that ATT believes there will be a lot of walk outs.
Then I walked across the street to the apple store... they told me they had no idea how it was going to work, but did say the phone had to be activated, which means there will probably be an ATT rep in the store. I asked the apple store if I should wait at ATT or there.. they said it didnt matter, but the Apple store is having a launch party... so I will wait at Apple to get the free whatever it is they give away.
I have my stuff ready to go and will be there early, early Friday morning.
Just wanted to let you know what ATT told me when asked.

[doglesby]

moose

Does anyone know exactly what the "no contract" iPhone 3G entails? Do you have to use an AT&T pay-as-you-go plan, or what? (I don't have an iPhone yet) Has any cost analysis been done as to the break even point between the AT&T standard plans and some other way?

According to leaked AT&T memos, there won't be a pay-as-you-go option. Contract only.

[doglesby]

rburtt said:

"Now you know: and knowing is half the battle."

YO Joe!

Seriously, how did no one catch the last line of the article? Am I really that old?

You beat me to it!

[doglesby]

At 20 cents per message with the volume of SMS messages I send/receive, I'm better off without buying an allotment of messages. Some consumer protection agency should step in though on charging both the sender and the recipient. At those prices, I think charging the sender should be more than adequate (I cancelled text messages on my old phone when I was charged for spam).

As someone pointed out earlier, AT&T charged too little on the iPhone data plan. Turns out iPhone users actually use the data network, much to AT&T's chagrin. These higher prices don't pay for the subsidy, not paying Apple a portion of the service fee covers the subsidy.

[tfrogh]

hmmmmmm I "was" excited about upgrading from my Treo 650 and Verizon. Now I am not so sure. Yes, my Treo and Verizon have sucky service in non-urban areas, but our Verizon plan for both phones is just under $100/mo with taxes and fees and SMS. We use SMS like mad. Jumping to $167/mo ($13030taxes/fees) AND spending $400-$600 on phones just seems silly.
I think we will wait a few months. Let them gouge the "must have it" folks. Perhaps they have not read the newspaper lately. The economy is weak right now. Time to roll our deals not premium priced products. Lucky for AT&T the Apple names will pay off. They could never gouge like this with any other phone. Well they could, they would simply sell a few thousand instead of hundreds of thousands.
Tom

[Mrvee]

If I was solely discussing a raw business model, of course I'm wrong. How astute of you to pick up on that. :8}
What I'm chesed off about is att this rate, these costs will slowly begin to creep down into other
plans using the 3G, 4G, 5G networks as the reason for the jump. It will
happen, it always happens. What I'm railing on is the cost of
entry. Nothing more, nothing less

[jswan]

It's funny, if AT&T did the Simply Everything Plan, aka Sprint, they would completely devour the competition. But, alas, they chose to have a much more expensive option than Sprint, which is why I can't justify switching over, which kills me because I love Apple.

[stangold]

What about those who already have an iPhone and want to upgrade?
Stan

[bynkii]

Mrvee said:

If I was solely discussing a raw business model, of course I'm wrong. How astute of you to pick up on that. :8}

What I'm chesed off about is att this rate, these costs will slowly begin to creep down into other
plans using the 3G, 4G, 5G networks as the reason for the jump. It will
happen, it always happens. What I'm railing on is the cost of
entry. Nothing more, nothing less

actually, as technology becomes more mature, and the initial development costs are handled, the costs tend to go down. Sprint would NOT be doing unlimited if they were still paying off the initial EVDO buildout costs. But since they did that some time ago, the initial costs are paid off and it's easier to drop prices.

[amazme1]

It never ceases to amaze me how inaccurate such things as rate information can be when published in articles like this. The inaccuracies create a lot of wrong reactions. Here is a prime example. The article on the new ATT rates states that its $130 for a family plan with Iphone. This is inaccurate because it wrongly assumes that both parties to the plan will use Iphones. Fact: The cost of an Iphone family plan with one Iphone and one regular phone is $100/month plus applicable tax and surcharge. If I compare that to my current Verizon family plan with two phones, here is the breakdown. My total Verizon cost for a shared 700 minute plan is $75 and change/month including tax and surcharge with a 20% discount and at the time I signed the contract the discount was only on the primary line. Now that I'm leaving they are willing to discount the total package. Since my wife and myself will sign up for a shared 700 minute family plan with only one Iphone, the price including one data package is $100 - 20% $80 plus about a $12/month surcharge for a approximate total of $92/month or a difference of $17/month from my Verizon plan. I should point out here that it would actually be a smaller difference because had I stayed with Verizon I would have added a data package. Also, for the sake of accuracy, I must add the one time cost of $199 $36 activation for my Iphone and assuming my wife takes a free phone, the additional $26 activation cost for the second phone. The point of this response is to show that just reporting that a Iphone family plan is $130/month is worthless without the assumptions the price is based on.

[bynkii]

jswan said:

It's funny, if AT&T did the Simply Everything Plan, aka Sprint, they would completely devour the competition. But, alas, they chose to have a much more expensive option than Sprint, which is why I can't justify switching over, which kills me because I love Apple.

Different cost issues. Sprint did their EVDO and even the EVDO rev A buildout years ago. Those costs have been mostly, if not completely dealt with. AT&T just finished their initial big 3G buildout, and those costs have to be paid. They can't arbitrarily change costs on existing contracts, so new devices/new contracts are going to take it in the shorts.