The way I understand it, if I get an iPhone plan before the 7th I can still get the $30/month unlimited data plan on AT&T (and carry it over to a next-gen iPhone when they are available). I left AT&T a year ago for Verizon and have loved the rediscovered ability to actually make and sustain phone calls on my mobile device. So why am I even considering this? Because of the lure of unlimited data.
I don’t use that much data right now, but I hate to see the window closing on my ability to get it if I want it in the future (especially with tethering). We are going to be consuming more bandwidth, not less, as time goes on. I still regret giving up my old grandfathered Sprint contract that had sweet data rates.
I think the best option (assuming this is possible) would be to pay full price on the cheapest iPhone I could get now to get the plan locked in, then use the hardware upgrade discount when the new iPhones are available. Might take a little negotiating at the store…
I was pretty much planning to get a next-gen iPhone anyway and giving it a go as my primary device, making a month or two bet on that in advance doesn’t seem like such a bad play. Of course, I was hoping to get that next-gen iPhone on Verizon (the ability to sustain a phone call from my house to my office is so convenient)… but that doesn’t look like it will be an option for a while yet.
I’ve also been tempted to go back to the BlackBerry, mainly due to missing the keyboard, speed and battery life on my previous BlackBerry devices. The $30/month unlimited data plan is available for the BlackBerry at the moment too. I don’t know if I could get that and then transfer it to an iPhone account later – perhaps worth learning about.
I’ve tried out a NexusOne running FroYo for the last week. It’s a fine OS and device, but T-Mobile coverage at my house is lousy and it hasn’t been impressive enough to tempt me to go the Droid route on Verizon.
The constant choice between not-even-close-to-perfect options in the mobile space is very frustrating.
From what I understand, you can not use the Tethering option with the unlimited data plan. So you have to make a choice of either unlimited data, or capped data with tethering. That may help your decision.
I’m in the same boat! I know what you mean. Right now I hacked my iPhone to work on the GoPhone network, so I only pay $20/month for 100MB. Surprisingly, 100MB goes pretty far (as long as you set up WIFI when you are home and in the office). So the 2GB plan…probably enough.
But I’d guess that video chatting is coming to the iPhone. And this is their way of monetizing bandwidth.
I wonder who won the pool on how long it would take you to want to switch again 😉
Jeffro is correct – you need the $25 plan to tether. You can’t tether the $30 unlimited plan.
I’m actually gonna jump on the $25 AT&T plan. It’ll save me $10/mo. I use ~100MB a month and the wife uses ~230MB a month (she doesn’t have an open wifi network to use at work). I could survive on the $15 plan but I want to be able to easily tack on tethering for the few times a year that I need it.
I see little value in tethering without the unlimited plan – you’re paying an extra $20 to be able to share the same data limit with more devices. That’s very lame.
I fully expect to be able to tether on the unlimited plan, but also expect it might require jailbreaking.
From what I’ve been reading, tethering on the unlimited plan will ONLY be available to those who want to jailbreak which of course violates the license agreement. So don’t get caught 😛 and don’t brick it.
I definitely agree that tethering requires jailbraking and unlimited data plan.
“The constant choice between not-even-close-to-perfect options in the mobile space is very frustrating.”
My family has been involved in the mobile space since 1985. By nature of the business, the space is filled with lousy service, assumed business, monopolies and overcomplicated and regulated infrastructure.
Its amazing we even have things like iPhones, much less that they function.
No carrier is a panacea for any other carrier’s deficiencies. They all suck in different ways. I have devices on all four 🙂
talked to att today blackberry unlimited data can be tranferred to iphone 4