It turns out that $60 a month isn'tthe cheapest service charge for an iPhone, not if you're willing to call up and go through the rigmarole of threatening to cancel your account with AT&T. Some subscribers are claiming that, when they contacted the carrier to complain about poor internet performance and asked to sever the contract, they were offered an unpublicised $39.99 a month plan with no included unlimited data or SMS bundle.
SMS messages can still be sent and received - at 25 cents each - but there's no visual voicemail, and there's about $8 of service fees on top of the line rental too. You still get the bundled minutes and full WiFi connectivity whenever there's a signal present. Although many have complained about the relatively low speed of the iPhone's EDGE connection, it's a big step to go from "ponderous" to "nothing at all"; without the cellular data connection the iPhone begins to look a little more like a PDA than a smartphone.
Is this plan something that would interest any MY iTablet readers? I can't help but think that saving twenty bucks a month is really not worth it for the convenience you give up.
[via Electronista]
Hate to break it to them, gut the $59.99 is just a $39.99 voice + $20 data plan. If they think they are getting a deal paying $39.99 for voice only, all they really did was drop the data plan.
True, but what’s interesting is that Apple & AT&T initially said there was no way you could buy the iPhone without signing up for a data plan with it. The $39.99 voice-only plan wasn’t an option.
[quote comment="5729"]Hate to break it to them, gut the $59.99 is just a $39.99 voice + $20 data plan. If they think they are getting a deal paying $39.99 for voice only, all they really did was drop the data plan.[/quote]
the additional $20 is worth it. Why would anyone want to purchase the iPhone without the dataplan? I’ll be the first to lead the bitch session regarding the iPhone’s lack of 3G support — but listen, I’ve been on T-Mobile (without 3G support on any devices) for years now. How do T-Mo’s customers deal with it?