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AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

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Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#151

Post by Zak »

KMag wrote: post #111
Zak wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my rough location (must be kept by Dutch law) That's creepy, and would make me not want to carry a phone at all.

Where do you live that carriers don't keep a history of where your phone has been? Every once in a while I read a news story where a suspect's cell phone was connected to the nearest tower to a dumped body, around the time the coroner thought the body was dumped.

I live in the US, and I'd be surprised if the carriers don't keep such data for a while. That's bad on its own. The part that's extra disturbing is that your government would require it.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#152

Post by pootch »

WHile this is great link bait the fact that you yourself just upgraded from a flip phone 4 months ago hardly qualifies you to opine on the state of the cellular providers. You are writing a blog post about news to you which has been news to all of us going back years. Why not shutup and buy another flip phone rather than stating the obvious and wasting my 4 seconds.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#153

Post by c6comp »

ewillbefull wrote: post #103
kevingadd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not accurate, actually, though I understand your confusion. I ordered a SIM from them a few weeks ago (on the website) and then activated my phone with one of those plans. No Walmart.

Went to T-Mobile store friday, they sold me a microsim for my nexus 4 and told me to go to the walmart down the street to activate the $30 plan. I tried calling customer support but they also told me to go to walmart to get the plan. I get to walmart and they tell me I have to buy one of their shitty phones to activate the plan. I call customer support again and asked if I could return the sim I bought at the store,…

The 99cent sim on their site works fine.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#154

Post by learc83 »

tramster wrote: post #132
learc83 wrote: post #92

I've been using republic wireless for about a year now. $19 a month for unlimited everything. For people who don't know, it's a hyrbid wifi phone that also allows for unlimited 3g, talk and texts on sprint's network when you're not near wifi.

Wow, just looking over it, that looks great! How long has it been around for? I've never heard anything about it.

Right around a year (I got into the first beta slot). They are part of bandwidth.com, who does the backend voip infrastructure for lots of other big companies.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#155

Post by xpaulbettsx »

techsupporter wrote: post #33
xpaulbettsx wrote: post #17

I can confirm this, the exact same thing happened to me. No notice, just decided my phone should cost an extra $80/mo

What in the world kind of data plan did AT&T force you onto that costs $80/month?

In my case, the SIM card had the most basic of boring voice plans, then it upgraded it to the Data + Text + Voice "standard" iPhone plan

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#156

Post by aneth4 »

bifftannen wrote: post #133
aneth4 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are at least 3 major nationwide providers competing against each other on service and price. There are also many secondary local providers and providers renting networks from the national providers. How is that not competitive?

You can't take a unlocked GSM phone onto Verizon or Sprint. You can't take a Verizon phone onto Sprint. You can't take a Sprint phone onto Verizon. The only carrier you can choose with GSM is T-Mobile. But wait, they use the 1900MHz 3G band, so if you've got a phone that doesn't use that band, you're stuck with EDGE data. LTE won't change this, they've chosen different bands.

You can however sell your phone and buy one for a different network. iPhones in particularly have a very high resale value, and regardless the phone you bought maintains its market value and is resalable.

Telecom networks are extremely expensive to build. Having more than a few on the same technology would be wasteful, and consumers benefit from a diversity of technologies in the long run in addition to some level of network compatibility.

But seriously, don't like your network? Sell your phone on eBay and buy a different one that works on a different network. How hard is that?

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#157

Post by aneth4 »

krschultz wrote: post #140
aneth4 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are at least 3 major nationwide providers competing against each other on service and price. There are also many secondary local providers and providers renting networks from the national providers. How is that not competitive?

"Competitive" is not binary. Yes, 4 networks is better than 1, but it's not like you have 30 choices. Even with MVNOs, there aren't many real options. If Verizon were GSM it'd be a lot better, but as of now you are really locked in.

Your phone is freely salable. You are not locked in.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#158

Post by chris_wot »

Xylakant wrote: post #124
chris_wot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't sign or agree to anything. Or at least so it says in the article. Unless you mean they signed an agreement that they agreed to literally any terms - which would be an unenforcable contract. Your use of the question mark is unnecessary and smacks of snark. Please don't do that.

I assume the GP meant that the clause was in the original contract the author signed when getting the sim-card he's currently using. That contract might have a clause to the effect that smartphone usage with that SIM costs extra.

Seems unlikely. It looks like they replaced the contract. I'd be interested in seeing the datapan contract to confirm this!

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#159

Post by cheald »

gergles wrote: post #45
mkhattab wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, however you can order the (micro, if applicable) SIM activation kit online for $0.99 and free shipping. If you can't wait then your only option is picking up a SIM card kit from a T-Mobile store for $20.

T-Mobile stores no longer sell SIM card kits; you must buy them online. You can also regularly get a T-Mobile prepaid phone of some variant for $20 at Walgreens, which comes with the "Activation Kit" (SIM card and secret number) as well as a terrible GSM-only phone you can throw away.

I picked up a SIM card for my new Nexus 4 in-store a couple of weeks ago. Just walked in, told them what I needed, was promptly given a card for $0.

Re: AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

#160

Post by henryw »

__david__ wrote: post #83
henryw wrote: post #66

Straight Talk is a great alternative. They use AT&T towers and only charge $45/month for unlimited call/text/data. Works on my iPhone.

Do you get visual voicemail with that plan?

No unfortunately.
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