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AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone
- josephby 14y agoI've never heard of this before, but it's absolute crap. I'd take five minutes and fill out the the FCC complaint form at http://www.fcc.gov/complaints http://www.fcc.gov/complaints (choose Wireless Telephone > Billing, Service, Privacy ... > Online Form). Send them back a letter with the bill (including the reference number that the FCC gave you). The correspondence will be handy if they ever try to cut you off or send you to collections. It's amazing how Slamming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_slamming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_slamming) refuses to die.
- bwlang 14y agoYeah they did the same thing to me. That was the last straw for me after 12 years with ATT/Cingular/whatever it was before that. I switched to T-mobile, even though it was a bit of a hassle to unlock my phone and their coverage is not as good in my area.
- deepdog 14y ago<a href="http://Impossible HQ" class="network_link"> Part of the <span>Impossible HQ</span> network. </a> Nice...
- aaronpk 14y agoIt's not "for all intensive purposes", it's "for all intents and purposes" http://grammarist.com/eggcorns/for-all-intensive-purposes/ http://grammarist.com/eggcorns/for-all-intensive-purposes/
- tksb 14y agoIf I hadn't read this comment, I'd twitch for hours—thank you.
- joelrunyon 14y agoI never knew that. Fixed. Thanks.
- paulhauggis 14y agoThe article you stated states that "for all intensive purposes" is common usage, although not correct. At some point, it becomes accepted usage. Kind of like when you try to say that hackers only tinker with things. Words and meanings change.
- Osmium 14y agoI agree with this, and I'm definitely not a prescriptivist, but I have to ask: what, exactly, is an "intensive purpose" in this context?
- SkyMarshal 14y agoHackers generally aren't in the business of turning meaning into gibberish, which is what these 'eggcorns' are. Imho, it's worth resisting nonsensical cargo-cult language, even if only as a matter of principle.
- kevingadd 14y agoAT&T are scum and this sort of stuff is standard practice with them. You shouldn't be giving them your money if you can avoid it. If you've got a GSM phone with the right radio bands, I suggest taking a look at the $30 plans here: http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans http://prepaid-phones.t-mobile.com/monthly-4g-plans For CDMA I believe Sprint and Verizon offer prepaid plans without contracts at around $50 for talk/data. The key is that IMO, a prepaid plan makes the terms of the arrangement clear, and if the carrier decides to try and overstep their boundaries, you can cut them off. They don't have the ability to take you to collections or withdraw from your account or increase your bill behind your back. Of course, if T-Mobile tries to screw with you as a prepaid customer, they've got some leverage since your only alternative is AT&T. Not so great. Still, better than nothing...
- fossuser 14y agoT-Mobile is my favorite cellular provider in the US by far and I used them for years before starting work (company pays for phone and Verizon has the best network). They made having a smartphone affordable and made it easy to upgrade by reselling your unlocked phone online (recouping most of the unsubsidized cost).
- SkyMarshal 14y agoSecond all of that. Also their data plans are nice, if you exceed it (which I do sometimes via tethering, which also just works with T-Mobile), you're not cut off just rate-limited, and to a rate that's still fine for browsing websites, just not for watching Youtube.
- joelrunyon 14y agoAt this point it isn't even about the data anymore, it's the simple fact that they're "choosing a plan" for me, without any input from me. Absolutely baffling. I'll check out those options. Thanks.
- BruceIV 14y agoIf you're out of contract, why can't you just ditch them for another carrier? (or at least threaten to - it may make them more amenable to your very reasonable requests)
- acak 14y agoI've had this happen to me. I agree it's presumptuous and toeing the line but just so you know I've always been able call them and have the data plan turned off for good on that line. One of the arguments I make with them is that if I have kids on my family plan who go off to school and pop their feature phone SIM card into their friends smartphone, I can't be expected to deal with that headache - and if AT&T isn't going to recognize that the person who pays the bill should have the final say in the matter, and they don't offer basic parental controls, I'll take my business elsewhere. It's worked at least three times on three different lines off the top of my head.
- joelrunyon 14y agoI spent about 60 minutes on the phone with them today and they didn't back down (they'll take it off if I use a dumb phone, but they'll still charge me for this month). I'll try your line of thought. Thanks.
- fairramone 14y agoJust hang up and dial back. Do this a few times and you'll find an agent who can help. I imagine this auto plan thing is to avoid massive per minute charges they would normally charge
- Harkins 14y agoChargeback. Your credit card company takes a dim view of people who try to bill you for things you haven't ordered.
- chris_wot 14y agoBe careful about that. If you chargeback and the large company fights back, you could be in a world of pain with the phone company AND the credit card company!
- rapala 14y agoHave you red your original contract? Is this something covered in it?
- MichaelGG 14y agoIt's not clear if he's referring to a prepaid plan here. Prepaid definitely is the safest bet - essentially no surprises, and little ability for them to rip you off. I use prepaid AT&T (T-Mobile seems to have less coverage where I go) when I'm in the States, and the data is optional. On prepaid it used to be that the available/required plans depended on the IMEI used to activate the SIM. So if you bring a crapphone and activate then switch the SIM into your iPhone you should be set and not need an upgrade. Not sure if that's still the case and they only periodically audit or what.
- amartya916 14y agoI use the AT&T prepaid service as well (GoPhone) on a factory unlocked smartphone; I don't use the data, but have the ability to turn it on if I need to. As it turns out, one can just get a GoPhone sim at an AT&T store and get it activated then and there (no need to take a dumbphone or your smartphone there at all). The sim costs 99 cents. I have been using this sim for the past 6 months.
- fpgeek 14y agoThe last time I checked, you couldn't use a GoPhone SIM in an iPhone, period (though this could have easily changed, especially now that T-Mobile is deep into their refarm). Easily the #1 complaint of international iPhone users visiting the US.
- MichaelGG 14y agoCorrect. Some of the bundled packages have SIMs on plans that are IMEI locked and you can't pop them into better phones and have them work. A friend and I got burned on that.
- ncallaway 14y agoI'm using T-Mobile in much the manner the author describes and not having any problems. This is exactly the kind of reason why their attempt to buy T-Mobile failed.
- yellowbkpk 14y agoThis started happening about 1.5 years ago on AT&T. Any smart phone that AT&T "knows about" will get a ~$30/mo smartphone data plan added the moment you insert your SIM card into it. You'll get a text message ~30 minutes later saying so. You can get around this by using a phone that hasn't previously been on AT&T's network. For example, I have a Galaxy Nexus, iPhone 2G, and Nexus One that have all gotten past this check and I've kept my $10/mo data plan. My iPhone 3G, 4 and Atrix 4G were all previously locked to AT&T and so have caused this message previously. Once you do this you can put your SIM card back in a "dumb phone" and ~24 hours later you should be able to remove the smart phone data plan from your account via the AT&T web interface.
- luser001 14y agohttp://venturebeat.com/2010/12/21/fcc-net-neutrality-is-a-go/ http://venturebeat.com/2010/12/21/fcc-net-neutrality-is-a-go... I wonder if this is legal because of the net neutrality ruling on mobile networks that the FCC put out a couple of years ago.
- danielweber 14y agoI was told by AT&T that my new phone "required" a data plan but they never actually turned it on. ... no, I just checked. They've been billing me $30 a month for a data plan. BASTARDS!
- WayneDB 14y agoJoel, you said "They can opt me into a contract that I didn't agree to", but are you sure that you didn't implicitly/legally agree to something that says they can do that? Maybe their Terms of Service?
- greg5green 14y agoOh, it is in the TOS. It's shady and I think it's dumb that AT&T does it, but he definitely "implicitly agreed" to it.
- joelrunyon 14y agoAccording to the TOS, they're supposed to notify you and give you a way to cancel in 30 days. I was notified but never given the chance to cancel.
- greg5green 14y agoThat means that you had 30 days from when they changed the TOS. Not from when they started charging you.
- xpaulbettsx 14y agoI can confirm this, the exact same thing happened to me. No notice, just decided my phone should cost an extra $80/mo
- techsupporter 14y agoWhat in the world kind of data plan did AT&T force you onto that costs $80/month?
- xpaulbettsx 14y agoIn my case, the SIM card had the most basic of boring voice plans, then it upgraded it to the Data + Text + Voice "standard" iPhone plan
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Moto7451 14y agoId suggest 86-ing them and go to Straighttalk. They're an AT&T MVNO and for $55 you get unlimited service and data.
- gergles 14y agoIt's $45, but you only get 2GB of data. They advertise 'unlimited' but if you go even a byte over 2 GB they harass you with automated phone calls and then 'throttle' you (down to less than 1 Kb/s, so basically disable your data access, as everything times out). The California Department of Consumer Affairs doesn't seem to care about their abuse of the term 'unlimited', but we should here.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- knite 14y agoThis differs from reports on HowardForums, which state that only repeated overages into the ~2.5 GB range will result in throttling. This is still an abuse of the term 'unlimited', but less bad than a brick wall at 2 GB.
- 18pfsmt 14y agoJust to be clear. I also use StraightTalk, but here in Colorado, they are an MVNO for Verizon. Carlos Slim's organization has been able to cut MVNO deals with all 3 large US carriers I believe, and it's easy to understand the leverage they have (i.e. want your customers to be able to roam in Mexico?). I've thought about getting a smartphone and fooling the network to believe I have a feature phone, but I have abstained and simply use an iPod Touch (w/ SIP client) + a feature phone. It simply seems like too much effort for me right now.
- rabble 14y agoI've got a xiaomi M1 which i picked up in China, it's only sold in mainland china and i've never had any problem telling AT&T that it's a dumb phone. No messages or anything. Maybe it's just an obscure enough phone. Miui is a pretty well maintained distribution of android.
- mzr 14y agoI think AT&T has a database of IMEIs of known US smartphones. You used to be able to get around the scans with an imported Nokia, for example. I used to have a Nokia X6 that never got picked up for the two years I used it.
- jacalata 14y agoThis has been happening for at least several years now. I haven't tried it myself (I want a dataplan), but I hear that one way to avoid this is to have a smartphone that they don't sell, because they identify it by matching the device id to their database of smartphone ids, which is only populated with devices they sell? I'd be interested in hearing if this is true or not.
- agwa 14y agoAT&T doesn't consider my Nokia N900 a smart phone. I'm pretty certain AT&T never sold the N900, so this could support your theory.
- andrewflnr 14y agoApparently I've been "getting away with it" on my Galaxy Nexus (on which I turned off data instantly). So there's a data point for you.
- Breefield 14y agoThis happened to me 3 days ago—I got a friend's old iPhone 3GS a few months back and hadn't had data. It was great, but now AT&T decided I need data and gave me the $30 plan rather than the base $20.
- lucb1e 14y agoThat's why I got prepaid. 10 euros a month off it for 250MB internet, 2-3 euros for calling and texting. Cheaper than any plan, even plans without calling and texting. Oh no, prepaid is always more expensive! they tell me in the shop. They then walk straight over to their computers to show me, and they show me something slightly more expensive. What a joke, these subscriptions. Right now all my carrier has on me is my rough location (must be kept by Dutch law), call history, and phone number. Good luck billing me for using a Galaxy Note II.
- Zak 14y agomy rough location (must be kept by Dutch law) That's creepy, and would make me not want to carry a phone at all.
- KMag 14y agoWhere do you live that carriers don't keep a history of where your phone has been? Every once in a while I read a news story where a suspect's cell phone was connected to the nearest tower to a dumped body, around the time the coroner thought the body was dumped.
- Zak 14y agoI live in the US, and I'd be surprised if the carriers don't keep such data for a while. That's bad on its own. The part that's extra disturbing is that your government would require it.
- lucb1e 14y agoI still have a hard time believing it, but it seems to be true. It was said in a Dutch documentary about the "panopticum", and it's mentioned in the privacy policy of my carrier.
- nickm12 14y agoFor those wanting smartphone functionality without smartphone prices, I suggest using T-Mobile prepaid. I have a Nexus 4 that I use without a data plan. 90% of my life is spent within the comforting rays of wifi and I use my phone for email, web browsing, etc. When I'm out I can make voice calls when needed. The best part, though, is that you can purchase data access for $3 a day. So when I travel I usually turn on the data so I can stay connected and look things up.
- cj 14y agoPro tip: If you legitimately fail at reasonably resolving an issue like the OP, try filing a Better Business Bureau complaint. You'd be surprised. I filed one against Verizon last month and got a call a week later from their "executive team" offering me exactly what their support agents said was "impossible, against policy and regulation". Got a $550 account credit :)
- timcederman 14y agoWhat's with the svbtle ripoff?
- RobotCaleb 14y agoWhat's with the only comments where I hear someone complain about a website looking like another website only ever asking about svbtle? What's so special about that site? Or in sites looking similar in the first place?
- joelrunyon 14y agoI wasn't aware it was a proprietary design. I found the posterous theme on GitHub - https://github.com/lipka/svbtle-for-posterous https://github.com/lipka/svbtle-for-posterous
- yozmsn 14y agoI guess it's because a couple months ago svbtle debuted as an invite-only blogging thing, and a bunch of people got really angry and created an exact copy just to spite what the Org. guy was doing which was basically saying: if you see this design you know you're gonna be reading quality stuff.
- DanBC 14y agoDustin Curtis posts here. He made an unfortunate post announcing svbtle, which annoyed a few people. One of them made a svbtle rip off. (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742314 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3742314) (http://dcurt.is/codename-svbtle http://dcurt.is/codename-svbtle) (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3744237 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3744237)
- joelrunyon 14y agoFound it here - https://github.com/lipka/svbtle-for-posterous https://github.com/lipka/svbtle-for-posterous
- Yxven 14y agoI just went through this. Verizon also will not let you have a smart phone without a data plan. My search for phone service without a dataplan lead me to h20wireless prepaid. I expect my yearly phone bill to be $100 now. (I rarely call or text anyone)
- shmerl 14y agoAT&T are one of the worst mobile companies in US. Avoid them as a plague.
- stox 14y agoThis is the same company that claims that how they measure your usage to determine DSL data caps is Proprietary. I think the time to put them under full regulation has come again.
- trotsky 14y agoA little known aspect of the tough as nails deal that apple cut with at&t for a lengthy US exclusive deal was that that apple got a not insubstantial piece of every iphone subscriber's service fee from at&t. Not far below $10/mo/subscriber when the iphone first rolled out as I understand it. This is why AT&T has had a variety of fee recouping schemes on the iphone over the years. This is where all the verizon iphone rumors came from every year after the first year or two - the deal got renegotiated yearly after the first two and both parties were playing big time hardball, though I am under the impression the subsidy amount dropped dramatically by the end. I think they still have some obligations to pay on some subscribers that predate the loss of exclusivity.
- lgg 14y agoAnother part of that deal was that the phones were unsubsidized, and the data plan was a lot cheaper than AT&T's other data plans ($20 for unlimited, everything else was $30 at the time). I am pretty sure that Apple sacrificed all of the monthly revenue from AT&T when they moved to the more conventional US subsidy model with the iPhone 3G.
- henryw 14y agoStraight Talk is a great alternative. They use AT&T towers and only charge $45/month for unlimited call/text/data. Works on my iPhone.
- boushley 14y agoHave you looked into ting? (ting.com) They currently only have android, and they are just using Sprint's network but they are month to month and it is super easy to turn off data.
- ISL 14y agoSuper pleased with Ting. They won't work with OP's AT&T phone, but their service is good-enough. Especially for voice, where the Sprint service roams on Verizon. After a 2-3 month trial, I've switched everything to Ting (and bought stock in Tucows). Ting's rate plan and philosophy, or something similar, is the future. Just so long as Sprint doesn't kill them off....
- charlieflowers 14y agoIf the American people had any sense at all, we would drive AT&T out of business tomorrow. This story is no exception -- they live to do this kind of crap. They boss the consumer around, but it is the consumer who truly holds all the power. Luckily for them, we consumers have been lulled into inattention, and somehow we put up with this crap. Edit/Addition: We need to ban together, drive AT&T out of business, and serve notice to the corporate world that they fucking work for us, not the other way around.
- chris_wot 14y agoSurely that is illegal? How can you be signed up to a contract you don't agree to?
- Groxx 14y agoBy signing a contract that says they can do this?
- chris_wot 14y agoThey didn't sign or agree to anything. Or at least so it says in the article. Unless you mean they signed an agreement that they agreed to literally any terms - which would be an unenforcable contract. Your use of the question mark is unnecessary and smacks of snark. Please don't do that.
- Xylakant 14y agoI assume the GP meant that the clause was in the original contract the author signed when getting the sim-card he's currently using. That contract might have a clause to the effect that smartphone usage with that SIM costs extra.
- chris_wot 14y agoSeems unlikely. It looks like they replaced the contract. I'd be interested in seeing the datapan contract to confirm this!
- learc83 14y agoI've been using republic wireless for about a year now. $19 a month for unlimited everything. For people who don't know, it's a hyrbid wifi phone that also allows for unlimited 3g, talk and texts on sprint's network when you're not near wifi.
- tramster 14y agoWow, just looking over it, that looks great! How long has it been around for? I've never heard anything about it.
- learc83 14y agoRight around a year (I got into the first beta slot). They are part of bandwidth.com, who does the backend voip infrastructure for lots of other big companies.
- shurcooL 14y agoNot related to AT&T's crappy move, but I found it interesting that I went the opposite direction and now own a data-only plan. I get my voice and texting using VOIP for nearly free, and the data only plan is much cheaper than smartphone or voice only plans.
- KMag 14y agoDetails please! Who's your VOIP provider?
- Spooky23 14y agoIf you are getting voicemail on an iPhone, you're using data. The arguments here don't make sense -- you can buy a prepaid AT&T phone for $30 or less at any drugstore, target or wal-mart.
- DanBC 14y agoJust a small point, but #4d4d4d on white, with that particular font, is unreadable to some people. And it's probably more people than you realise.
- yozmsn 14y agoUS Cellular has the exact opposite policy, you have to back their rep in a corner to admit it, but he'll say that you can get any phone you want from them, subsidized or not and cancel the data plan within the first month (when you get the phone, online at least you need to sign up for a plan, but after you can call them up). The trouble with USC is that they're a regional carrier, and they really only support the upper midwest, though their national plan uses Verizon/Sprint's network when you leave their coverage area. If that works for you, I'd highly suggest you look into a plan, they don't do the iPhone, but they do have free incoming and other fun stuff. I know this because I'm with USC right now and was attempting to force them into giving me a free GSIII without data, and they said, the data thing is really just a strong suggestion, "our customers call to complain that their 'phones don't work' and often it's because they wanna use the internet without a wifi signal, so we kinda 'mandate' a data plan that you can opt-out of" He did repeatedly say that the phone might not work predictably without a data plan, I told him that was okay, I was up to the task.
- rgovind 14y agoSince Android is open source...Can I change something in the source code and make it appear to AT&T a normal phone? Then AT&T won't know that I am using a smartphone? Is there no way to send a wrong IMEI number?
- goggles99 14y agoYes, XDA developers has a lot of info about this. Also search Google.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- goggles99 14y agoShould have changed his IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity Number) too.
- goggles99 14y agoThis has been going on for years. AT&T forces $25 dataplan on anysmartphone (even sans contract) http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-internet-wireless/how-spoof-imei-because-t-forces-25-dataplan-anysmartphone-even-sans-contract-104959.html http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-internet-wireless/how-spoo... Just change your IMEI number. Yes it is still legal in the US (who knows for how long though).
- dshep 14y agoThings like this are why you should avoid phone contracts. I'm been happy with StraightTalk. I have the AT&T variant and it has been quite good. Only downside is no service outside of the US.
- gravedave 14y agoRegarding getting a working "dumb" phone, you should get an import if you don't find them in the US. You said you travel a lot, right? There are low-end phone models made for developing countries and such. Nokia has lots of 1xxx series phones that only offer the very basics. Here in the UK, I had no trouble finding a refurbished Nokia 1100 for 17 pounds on Amazon, while used ones go for 11. Apparently, this particular model has been discontinued, but wikipedia has a whole list of all Nokia models, some still in production. And if you still want colour screens, there's the 2xxx series.
- bconway 14y agoThis is not an issue with prepaid plans, either carrier or MVNOs (Straight Talk, Net10, etc). You pay in advance for the features you want (data or not, etc), and that's what you get. No surprises, no automatically signing you up for anything, and no contracts. We've been using these on our Galaxy Nexus and other unlocked Android and iPhone devices for a couple years now with great success.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- swiil 14y ago+1 ... this happened to some of the users on my plan as well. Was finally able to turn it off but it took a lot of drama.
- arikrak 14y agoThis has been AT&T's practice for a while. The big carriers want to make huge monthly fees by charging people for the privilege to use a smartphone on their network. You have a few alternatives: Get a GSM phone that AT&T can't recognize, i.e. one that wasn't made for AT&T. Alternatively you could switch to one of the prepaid carriers that allow smartphones at no extra fee. These options may not last forever though. (I discuss a couple of prepaid options here: http://www.zappable.com/2012/07/smartphones-for-cheap-ii/ http://www.zappable.com/2012/07/smartphones-for-cheap-ii/ )
- pootch 14y agoWHile this is great link bait the fact that you yourself just upgraded from a flip phone 4 months ago hardly qualifies you to opine on the state of the cellular providers. You are writing a blog post about news to you which has been news to all of us going back years. Why not shutup and buy another flip phone rather than stating the obvious and wasting my 4 seconds.