GoPhones are no go for iPhone upgrades

Hey Guys,

I mentioned on a few other blogs that I was able to activate my iphone under Go Phone after 12.5 hours of aggravation. I discovered something very similar:

1) dont fund over phone
2) dont try porting your number in

I posted a long blog entry at http://jessicamah.com/blog/?p=126 and if anybody needs help, just let me know!

Well guys I didn't want to be stuck with yet another 2 year contract (existent Cingular/AT&T customer) or convert my single line to family plan. So when I ACTIVATED MY iPHONE I filled out all the Info and on the Social Security part the trick is to input 999-99-9999 and VOILA.... !! The system automatically trows you to GO PHONE PREPAID FOR THE iPHONE !! YES it is possible I sign up for the list expensive $29.99 for 200 ANYTIME Minutes plus $19.99 UNLIMITED DATA plus $4.99 for 200 TXT MESSAGES for a MONTHLY TOTAL of $54.97 plus TAX MY TOTAL IS $56.75 !! You have to enter a checking account or credit card (debit card is also OK) they will withdraw that exact amount every month until YOU CANCEL. No 2 year contracts or anything !! I hope this helps guys. Edgar M.

Hang on a minute. I use Lifelock service which puts fraud alerts on your credit report (to prevent ID theft etc.) and therefore my iPhone activation didn't work, so AT&T offered me a prepaid plan, which I took! Now I am out of the 2-year contract and on the rollover-happy, high-per-minute prepaid plan love. I bet if you bitch and scream you too can get onto the prepaid plan.

Rats. I live in Japan, and come to the U.S. every few months. I would have LOVED to give them my mother for a prepaid iPhone. Lame, lame, lame...

I think it's ment as "tied to" as in "sim locked". The iPhone won't reach Europe for a couple of months but all this talk of lock in, can't do this, won't allow such is starting to sound less and less appealing.

The European cell phone market is different from the United States. Am very doubtful whether a similar approach would fly with European customers.

Here there's talk of an exclusive deal with Vodafone (which is a crap provider imho) and there's no way I'd switch (from T-Mobile) for a phone.

#8 "SIM is embedded in the phone" - Is this known for sure? I have seen some things that could be interpreted that way, but nothing that clearly states it.

Correction (joined two sentences): There are ...

"What kind of person has $600 for an iPhone and uses prepaid cellular anyway aside from mobsters and drug dealers?
Posted at 12:04PM on Jun 27th 2007 by Eli Hodapp"

Careful with your stereotypes.

They're are non-criminal users of prepaid phones. People who make a limited number of cellphone calls per month benefit from prepaid plans. Do most of your talking via a land line & internet? Why would you need a $60/mo phone bill? Pay for a year long prepaid card. No monthly bills & fees for minutes & stuff you don't use. Done.

So, they too might like to have a handy dandy iPhone to use it for all its other features. Of course they would probably mainly use the WiFi part for the internet stuff.

They must be loosening up the credit approval criteria then because I guarantee that there are going to be some people who will purchase an iPhone that wouldn't normally qualify for a monthly service plan and I can't for the life of me seeing Apple or ATT being happy about the mass of open box returns that would ensue.

I have had GoPhone service for about three years now. Last year I bought a new phone and was not allowed to transfer my number to the new handset because Cingular/AT&T subsidizes the price of GoPhones by requiring each handset to leave the store with its own unique number.

The store rep was very helpful, though, in relaying to me a simple work-around: buy the new handset, activate its SIM with a new phone number, and then leave the store. Get in your car and swap out the SIM cards; voila: you've just ported your own number to the new GoPhone handset. I had no problem doing this.

The trick with the iPhone, we've just found out, is that the SIM is embedded in the phone and cannot be removed; thus, swapping SIM cards from pre-existing GoPhones (or other service providers, of course) is not possible, so transferring an existing GoPhone number to a new iPhone is also not possible.

The AT&T FAQ is a little vague on this, and probably intentionally so since they want everyone to sign up for thost 2-year contracts; however, the FAQ does not specifically spell out that the iPhone won't be offered with GoPhone service, merely that existing GoPhone customers will have to sign up for a new account, which is exactly consistent with their current policies and my own experience. My suspicion (and hope) is that AT&T will trot out a GoPhone plan for iPhone once the initial wave of 2-year contracts are signed this weekend, but they'll keep it on the down-low.

We'll know a lot more a week from now, for sure.