141–150 of 164 posts
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If you turn off the data your phone is as good as a dumb phone it can not use data at all unless you are on a wifi network.
If you turn the data off on say, an iPhone, it's as good as say, an iPod touch with calling capabilities, which is really all a lot of people want.
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"Why people feel entitled to services at the price they choose is beyond me." Sometimes, it's crazy, but people expect real competition versus oligopolists that mostly collude between themselves and show zero concern for regulatory action.
I pay about $14 a month for 800 talk minutes and 300mb data. There is real competition in a few countries, we should expect that in the free market USA.
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I use the AT&T prepaid service as well (GoPhone) on a factory unlocked smartphone; I don't use the data, but have the ability to turn it on if I need to. As it turns out, one can just get a GoPhone sim at an AT&T store and get it activated then and there (no need to take a dumbphone or your smartphone there at all). The sim costs 99 cents. I have been using this sim for the past 6 months.
The last time I checked, you couldn't use a GoPhone SIM in an iPhone, period (though this could have easily changed, especially now that T-Mobile is deep into their refarm). Easily the #1 complaint of international iPhone users visiting the US.
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>> There is no way to use a smartphone without using data? Er, turn off mobile data and rely on wi-fi. Calls and texts still work and your phone will behave as if you are roaming abroad (i.e if you crack and turn on mobile data, prepare to open your wallet).
Before you get a chance to go to settings app and turn off mobile data, the OS probably already made 10 data requests to check 20 settings. It is data call. Whether the telco should count that as data and charge for it is a different question.
That's why I got prepaid. 10 euros a month off it for 250MB internet, 2-3 euros for calling and texting. Cheaper than any plan, even plans without calling and texting. Oh no, prepaid is always more expensive! they tell me in the shop. They then walk straight over to their computers to show me, and they show me something slightly more expensive. What a joke, these subscriptions. Right now all my carrier has on me is m…
my rough location (must be kept by Dutch law) That's creepy, and would make me not want to carry a phone at all.
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> Your ungratefulness is likely to bring a well deserved meteor strike leaving you with fewer telecom options. I was perfectly happy with my previous contract. If I'm being "ungrateful" for the privilege of getting charged extra for a service I didn't agree to, then I guess we have different definitions of gratefulness.
You have a choice. Switch to T-Mobile. Regardless, calling AT&T scum is out of line. You are not mandated to purchase their services.
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So.. change the setting before you put the sim in? And if they don't have data in the plan the carrier by default just doesn't forward the packets
That must be possible I guess
You have a few alternatives: Get a GSM phone that AT&T can't recognize, i.e. one that wasn't made for AT&T. Alternatively you could switch to one of the prepaid carriers that allow smartphones at no extra fee. These options may not last forever though.
(I discuss a couple of prepaid options here: http://www.zappable.com/2012/07/smartphones-for-cheap-ii/ )
This has been happening for at least several years now. I haven't tried it myself (I want a dataplan), but I hear that one way to avoid this is to have a smartphone that they don't sell, because they identify it by matching the device id to their database of smartphone ids, which is only populated with devices they sell? I'd be interested in hearing if this is true or not.