“Christmastime is a time of giving,” Marguerite Reardon reports for CNET. “So it’s natural that if you got a shiny new smartphone, you’d want to give your old one away to a friend or family member.”
“But be careful to whom you bestow this present,” Reardon reports. “If the lucky recipient of your generous gift doesn’t already have a smartphone and a smartphone data plan, you may be saddling him or her with a higher monthly bill.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Honestly. Is this all this person has to write about?
Wow. Slow news day.
This is actually useful information. Wow go piss up a tree, jerk.
Be careful when you give someone who has a bike a Hummer. All of a sudden they might run into all sorts of cost, like insurance, taxes and not to mention gas!
You read it. You commented on it. Wow! You must have a boring life. Just saying.
My wife and I gave our two teenagers our iPhone 3G and 3GS when we upgraded to iPhone 4s. Indeed, AT&T slapped a data plan on me for the 3GS, but not the 3G. I argued unsuccessfully with the hapless AT&T rep about the stupidly of this policy given that the phone was not using any of AT&T’s data but to no avail. I gave in and removed the SIM from that phone, to the severe disappointment of my daughter Interestingly the rep could not express a rationale for not requiring a data plan for the 3G.
I had the same experience with an old 3G. AT&T forced me to subscribe to a data plan even though my 13 year old daughter has no need for it and was happy with wifi connectivity. FCC needs to get involved here to protect consumers. I understand AT&T needing to recover their subsidy on a new iPhone, but an old iPhone that is off plan should not require a data plan. I wrote th FCC and got now reponse.
My father-in-law is still using an original 1st-gen iPhone (jailbroken) on T-Mobile without a data plan. It’s on an old OS, but he just uses it for voice and text, so it doesn’t matter much. He likes the iPhone, but will not switch to a ‘supported’ provider for some reason (or switch to a more capable Android phone on T-Mobile, but I can’t blame him for that).
I hate phone contracts. And I do not care about having 3G data. Below is what I have been doing for a while. I hope it helps.
1. Get ATT prepaid SIM or prepaid SIM from an MVNO that works on ATT network (Google and find that out as I do not want to publish which MVNO I am using). I have found that both ATT prepaid and ATT MVNO have been working for the past few years.
2. Get a used iPhone on Craigslist. Used iPhone 4 is available for around $200 these days.
3. Manually cut the SIM to a micro SIM. Check Youtube for instruction video.
4. Wipe (reformat) and activate the iPhone using the SIM and start using it as a Prepaid iPhone. All services work on Wi Fi now.
This solution works perfectly for me and my wife. She has an unlimited text and voice plan for around $45 and uses Wi Fi for internet connectivity both at home and work. I pay $10 per month for my voice minutes as I mostly make my calls via Google Voice or VOIP Line.
Personally, I do not like the idea of ATT locking the device even after the contract is over. I vote with my money and take my business elsewhere.
THANK U SO MUCH SANJAY!!! I HEARD AWHILE AGO THERE WAS A WAY TO DO THIS…BUT NEVER GOT THE STEP BY STEP INFO LIKE URS….U MADE MY DAY AND DEF MY 11 YO SON AS HE WILL BE GETTING AN OLDER IPHONE THRU GAMESTOP..AS THEY SELL USED IPHONES….NOW… I REALLY APPRECIATE UR POST 🙂 GOING TO WALMART OR TARGET TO GET THE PREPAID CARDS NOW!!!
don’t forget to shut off your caps lock.
Isn’t this an old myth that’s already been debunked?
I had been using my old 3G iPhone with ‘cellular data’ turned off and using an AT&T gophone sim card, with the talkatone VoIP app via wifi to extend the minutes. Worked great. When I got the new iPhone 4, I gave it to my sister in law, and she’s now using it exactly as I did, without a data plan.
Seriously, This person wants to know if they can use Swype with an iPhone 4S? Why in the heck would you want to use some archaic form of data input when you can just dictate into your iPhone 4S? When all these phone copy cats are trying to get bigger screens so their input is easier, Apple has this game figured out years ahead of the clones.
It’s available in cydia as ‘iswype’ but I haven’t used it much. Found normal typing to be faster. And since iPhone 4S isn’t jailbroken yet, no iSwype.
H2O wireless works perfectly on the iPhone. Got a iPad micro SIM. Inserted in an iPhone 4. Got the data and unlimited voice text. Uses AT&T network. $60 per month. Done with AT&T forever.
Is this just AT&T? Or is it the same on Verizon and Sprint? Too bad you don’t have any consumer protection laws in the United States.
If you don’t have a contract, they have no right to force you to get a data plan no matter the device. This is not ethical.
” Too bad you don’t have any consumer protection laws in the United States.”
Right. In the U.S., our laws don’t protect consumers. We protect the thieves and liars who call themselves “corporations”. Read it and weep.
The full article says
> Unfortunately, AT&T requires that all smartphone users subscribe to a data plan as well as a voice plan.
This is NOT true. AT&T obviously “wants” all smartphone users to subscribe to a data plan, but it is not required. If you call and ask a rep, that’s what they will tell you.
I use an original iPhone with AT&T’s own GoPhone service, witch is a pre-paid service. It has options, but I choose to only pay for voice, not data. So, my iPhone is basically an iPod touch that can make phone calls.
The minimum cost is only $25 every THREE months, or “90 days.” Since it’s “pre-paid,” if you use up your time (10¢ per minute), you have to pay for more before 90 days. Unused minutes “roll over” to the next period, as long as you “refill” before the time expires. If you’re constantly talking on phone, this would be a bad idea; it works well for “light” callers like me.
The drawbacks… Obviously, you need to be at an accessible WiFi location to use the Internet, like with an iPod touch. GPS-related services do not work without a data plan. Voicemail is not “visual” (but it works fine the old school way).
Here in Canada, my wife has been using SevenEleven’s SpeakOut plan for a couple of years on her basic phone.
I just gave her my old 3GS and set her up with SpeakOut’s $10 a month unlimited data plan.
The data side needed a bit of tweaking to get it right but now it’s working great and pretty economical.
Phone $ roll over for a full year and only costs $0.20/min.
Japanese carrier Softbank Mobile has started offering a special plan for iPhone4 owners.
If a person changes his iPhone4 to iPhone4S , he can give his old iPhone4 to his family with a special contract.
Basic fee:980 JPY -> Free
Data basic fee:normally 315 JPY -> Free
Data plan -> Free ,up to 100 MB