Gotta hate AT&T but at the same time they are the only ones that really provide us GSM fans with coverage and choices of phones (well....somewhat anyways).

"I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

Pre-paid customers were never supposed to be using iphones to begin with.

I do not see how they can limit it... I would think it is part of the agreement with AT&T and Apple. They are going to limit the ones on PayAsYouGo who are not on the right data plan. How is that wrong? If your not paying for the Data plan for iphone shouldn't you be interrupted until you do? They are not making you sign a contract just get the right plan..

How is this news when they are just ensuring people are on the right plan... Is it right for someone to be on data for say $15 instead of full price... Shouldn't att be able to make sure everyone is on the right plans?

Just get the right data plan period!!!

@jrlcopy:

yup...they're simply closing a loophole that wasn't supposed to exist anyway.

@Red_Flag:

*lightsaber activated*

@montusama: They are so large and evil that they are not evil? This makes no sense.

They offer lots of phones exclusively, meaning they have made deals to ensure that people have LESS choice, and thus must choose AT&T. Also, they have relatively poor coverage and a massively overburdened network.

@jrlcopy: How are prepaid customers different? What loophole exists that prevents users from buying an iPhone and using a prepaid SIM?

As phones that offer a similar experience to the iPhone are developed and released, it's choices like this one by ATT that will send customers to other carriers.

ATT has a long history of putting the screws to their customers, for me the issue that convinced me not to buy the iPhone was the ridiculous $20/mo fee for unlimited messaging.

I'm now a Sprint customer with a great Palm Pre, paying about 50% less each month for a better package with more minutes. What will ATT do when their exclusivity ends and they have to go back to at least *pretending* to satisfy their customers?

So, if you have an iPhone, and you want a pre-paid plan, can you just use wi-fi for data?

If you switch to a monthly plan, why do you have to make a 2-year commitment?

This is growning into an issue that is going to need government involvement. AT&T should not get to insist on a usage plan. I am mostly ok with devise exclusivity, but I think usage plans and devices should be held seperately, ubkess there is a specific difference, as in RIM's case.

Planned Obsolescence was bad enough, Forced Obsolescence should be illegal.

Wouldn't be surprised if this was just AT&T's way of guaranteeing their customers stick around in case Verizon picks up the Iphone. Lock em in to a 2 year contract.

@Mike626: Unlimited messaging isn't required. You can choose no messaging at all, meaning $0 additional cost.

Prepaid customers SHOULD be able to have any phone they want if they are willing to pay full price for the phone and a data plan. T-Mobile allows this. I am a contract customer, but think that people should have the choice.

@outinthedark:

I'm guessing the iPhone contract requires a regular voice plan, just like it requires a data plan. If AT&T doesn't want to offer prepaid service for the iPhone, they don't have to.

Just go to T-mobile. I'm sure they'll love your prepaid $$$ and your iphone will still work.

Don't lay down because AT&T wants to be a pig

If this isn't an anti-trust violation, nothing is.

@tmed: As far as I know, you can't buy a new iPhone (3G or otherwise) and have it hooked to a pre-paid plan.

"If you decide not to go, it's okay but we're informing customers that service will not be up to par."

The joke's on him. The service sucks for subscription customers too!

Google "QuickPwn". That is all.

This is great. As long as providers continue to limit choices, pressure will bild for free access.

So I can just go on ebay or craigs list...get a jail broken I phone and switch to boost mobile or t mobile

Apologies in advance if I have no idea what I'm talking about technologically, but how does AT&T know that you are using an iPhone? Don't they make other phones with data plans as well? Why can't you just tell them you lost your iPhone and you are putting the sim card in a new phone that you brought from the private market?

@lehrdude: When I log into my AT&T account it tells me what phone I have on each of my lines. It registers the kind of technology you have because you've registered it yourself by buying it.

Verizon does this as well. When I logged into my account with them, it would show me the phone I had.

I'm not sure whether you could just tell AT&T you lost your iPhone and were going to put your SIM card in a different phone. I think it would still register on their network since each phone is individual in serial number.

I don't get why those with existing equipment should have to sign another two-year contract. Sorry for being thick, but I thought that you only needed to sign a contract if you wanted to get a discounted price on a new phone? From the sound of it, Sadun has the original iPhone, which wasn't subsidized anyway. She should be able to hop over to postpaid without a contract at all.

Also, I hope this doesn't affect me. Because I've got my iPhone 3G on a postpaid account with the $10 Family Unlimited Data package. My main line already has an iPhone 3G with the data plan on it. No way I'm forking over another $30 per month for yet another iPhone data plan.

@Corporate_guy: Please elaborate on why you feel this is somehow an anti-trust violation.

Does it create a monopoly on cellphone use? Nope.

Does it involve price-fixing between multiple carriers? Nope.

Does it involve 2 or more carriers ganging up to exclude other carriers from selling phones? Nope.

If anything, it's the closing of an unforeseen loophole. As these are prepaid customers, they are not bound by a contract, and are free to take their business elsewhere.

ATTT IS AWESUM CUZ THEY HAVE THE IPOHNE... ILL NEVER SWITCH FROM AATT! I PICK PHOEN COMPANISE CUZ OF THEIR POHNES NOT THERE SERRVICSE

@pecan 3.14159265:

I know that with my T-mobile account, the website only lists the phones based on what phone ~I~ tell them I am using.

When my son threw my phone down the stairs and shattered it, I put my sim card into an old phone (different maker/model) from my sister-in-law until I was eligible for an upgrade and T-Mobile still listed my active phone as the one that broke. In addition, even after I upgraded to the new phone, the old phone was still listed on my account until I changed it...

@balthisar: This is true, but unlimited text messaging is something I expect to be included in a plan with unlimited email and data.

Regardless of the inclusion of messaging in their plan, $20 is still an outrageously inflated fee.

@jrlcopy: Wrong. With the original iPhone, iTunes would allow you to select a "Pick Your Plan" prepaid plan if your credit wasn't good enough. There is (was?) actually a loophole where you'd enter an invalid SSN (like 999-99-9999) and get the prepaid offering.

If they're going to kick everyone off, then they had better take the customer's prepaid payment history (keep in mind, this is a monthly plan, not a 10 cents per minute thing) into account for credit approval.

The original iPhone is a GSM handset and customers purchased the device outright. AT&T shouldn't pull this bullshit. If AT&T doesn't want to service prepaid customers, then I am sure their competitor (T-Mobile) will be more than happy to do so and accept their money.

@Kimberly Gist-Collins: Incorrect, no one deserves any specific model of phone. You want something a company owns you play by their rules or you opt for another model or different carrier.

@lehrdude: I've never switched SIM cards before, so I have no idea if this still holds true for AT&T..but I don't have an old phone to try it out with either.

@Cocoa Vanilla: No one is stopping people from taking their iPhones to another network. Granted, you would be breaking the ToS of the iPhone and Apple would no longer give you tech support on the phone.

If you wanted to you can unlock the phone and take it to TMobile, don't expect them to give you service they're not required to either.

Also, if they're not under a contract, then technically AT&T can cut off the service at any time right, just like you can stop using the phone at any time.

I think the reason they do that is because they think Apple is not going to continue having an exclusive with AT&T after next year. Therefore, they basically force iPhone pre-paid customers to lock into 2 years contract in order to prevent them from jumping ship once iPhones are available from other service providers.

@pecan 3.14159265: Yes, it does. AT&T will only have listed what phone you tell them you're using. For example, I have an LG Shine that I'm currently using, however the AT&T website states that I'm still using my Motorola Q, which my boyfriend is using. So, yeah.

If you just swap SIM cards, all the information regarding what type of plan you have is tied to your SIM card.

@Corporate_guy: I usually agree with you Corporate but I don't see it here. What monopoly is the violation based on? Not iPhones - there are other suitable cellphones and not cell service. I agree with Floob. They are simply closing a loophole - that some have relied on the existence of this loophole is irrelevant.

@tmed: Why should there be government involvement? If you don't like AT&T's conditions, you can go to one of the other cellular carriers. Nobody is forcing you to buy a specific phone with a specific plan. Just because you want a specific phone with (or without) a specific plan does not mean that the government should intervene on your behalf.

@lehrdude: Right, the AT&T site and in store only know what phone you tell them you're using. I would imagine they could tell because of the IEMI (serial number), iTunes, and/or the amount of data you use. I had a data plan on my old WM phone and since the iPhone it has increased dramatically.

I'll bet you the internet knows: [forums.macrumors.com]

this just in: the iphone dev team is planning to unveil a method to unlock the iphone 3g, allowing people to easily take their phone to another carrier:

[blog.iphone-dev.org]

@RandaPanda: Verizon and Sprint on the other hand, can tell exactly what kind of phone you have by the ESN attached to the device, since CDMA phones do not have sim cards.

@Corporate_guy: I think I agree.

If AT&T was simply declaring that pre-paid users would have to switch to a monthly plan, then it is simply slimy. However, to insist on a 2-year contract without a benefit to the customer, I think they have croseed into very shady territory. I would expect that the contract itself would be invalid because it is one-sided. Normally, a phone contract benefits the consumer by offering a discount on a phone. In the described situation, AT&T is offering a one-sided contract.

Anti-trust? Perhaps, perhaps not, but certainly questionable contractually.

@montusama: Tmobile is GSM, as is almost every carrier in the rest of the world. Hence the G.

I used to work for AT&T (my soul is growing back nicely, thanks for asking) and they are usually the priciest and have the worst plans. Part of it is due to a cobbled-together network of carriers they bought out; they don't play nice and it would be costly to rework the system to work together. The other part is that they don't care.

The iPhone was rolled out in an insane manner; I was there when it happened and the day before it was introduced, we had no idea how the activation system would work. We only knew what was already on the apple website and that wasn't much. AT&T had almost no input into the specs of the iPhone so it doesn't work with their system well and after several years there's no MMS. The interactive screen is wonderful but combining AT&T and Apple is like Darth Vader joining a death cult.

@Darrone:

I meant that even though they are "evil" we don't have much of a choice. If we went some sort of 3G access we need to go to AT&T since TMO's 3G sucks and unless you buy carrier phones you won't get 3g on their network.

I try not to buy AT&T branded phones hence their poor or good (depending on how you see it)selection doesn't matter to me.

@Amanda Davis Reeves:

T-Mobile - yes
Boost Mobile - no

Boost Mobile is Sprint Nextel's prepaid service on their iDEN network.

@Chuck Thorne: "...like Darth Vader joining a death cult." is now my slogan.

@jrlcopy: This statement shows a complete misunderstanding of how GSM phones were intended to work.

TMobile could make a killing Jail braking iPhones for a 1 year contract.

@Shivved: Once upon a time another company called AT&T thought they could tell you what phones you could and couldn't use on their plans.

The government (which had balls then) broke that AT&T into many pieces for that kind of anti-consumer behavior.

Now, hilariously, AT&T is almost completely re-joined into a single beast again... and part of an oligopoly of 4 carriers who control almost the entire market. This oligopoly feels that you should have to sign a two year contract to have quality service, even if you do not participate in the "subsidized phone" joke that they use as an excuse for the contracts, and buy your phone unlocked for outrageous prices.

The 2-year contract is not required for cable TV service, or even DSL in most of these cases, even though the DSL modem is provided free, and the cable TV install costs money too. Only the wireless phone industry seriously expects us to bend over and take this crap.

I know Ron Paul wouldn't approve, but I'd have NO PROBLEM with a law banning cell phone contracts and handset locking, and thus killing the subsidization of phones. The FREE market would bring phone prices down plenty quick. We don't need the cable company to subsidize TVs and yet we can still afford to buy them. My ISP doesn't subsidize my laptop, and the grocery store doesn't subsidize purchase of stoves.

Seriously, if you really think cellphones COST the carrier any more than the "after subsidy" price, you are gullible.

@tmed: Yes, I have an original (jailbroke) iphone with a T-Mobile prepaid sim card in it. I have no data plan, just use wi-fi if it's available. I'm not the type of person who needs to be tethered to the internet (or the phone) so it works just fine for me.