“For consumers eager to get their hands on an Apple iPhone, here’s the good news: It will be available in all 1,800 AT&T phone stores at 6 p.m. sharp on June 29,” Leslie Cauley reports for USA Today.
“To help accommodate as much foot traffic as possible, AT&T phone stores will stay open an extra hour — until 10 p.m. — on the first day… AT&T added 2,000 extra sales people to stores. Half will be there just to help handle the expected early crush of buyers. The other half, says Larry Carter, senior vice president of sales for AT&T, will stay long-term to help with extra customers the iPhone is expected to draw to AT&T’s stores,” Cauley reports.
“Crowd control on launch day is a concern. In some markets — Carter declined to name them — AT&T is working with local law enforcement on crowd-control plans. It also has alerted landlords at shopping malls and other phone store locations to make sure nobody is caught off guard,” Cauley reports.
“If your local store sells out, Carter says sales people will take mail orders, and devices will be shipped in 3 to 5 days, inventory permitting. ‘Ultimately, we will meet every customer’s desire to have one,’ Carter says,” Cauley reports. “To discourage scalpers, AT&T plans to limit how many phones each customer can buy. Carter declined to cite the number, saying only that AT&T would try to prevent ‘hoarding and reselling.'”
“Plans will be customized for the iPhone. Translation: The iPhone may offer cool features such as unlimited Web browsing, but you’ll have to pay for them,” Cauley reports. “Carter says the additional fees shouldn’t be a surprise. ‘Regardless of which device you’re using today, you pay us a certain amount for (voice) minutes, and you also pay us for data units,’ he says. ‘That is also true on the iPhone.'”
More info in the full article here.