Filed under: iPhone
AT&T making out like bandit on iPhone
Apparently AT&T is making out pretty well on this whole iPhone thing. According to a Rubicon Consulting study (NYT link, registration required) of 460 iPhone users about half (47%) switched to AT&T to get the iPhone and agreed to pay an average of $19 more per month to use the iPhone over their previous cell. Those numbers are just about right in my case from when I traded in my Treo on Sprint. What about you guys? How many of you switched to get an iPhone and how much more are you paying per month than you were before?
[via iPhone Central]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
oshi said 12:09PM on 5-20-2008
Well, i switched to the iPhone, but not to a plan. I would prefer Apple to sell the iPhone without contract, i am ready to pay more, as the device really is a small portable 'sort-of-mac'. But I am not willing to pay the premium fees to the limited providers.
I am in Austria, and very happy to pay 3.9 EUR monthly fee, 3.9 cents a minute into all networks, and get each 100 MB of data for 5 Euros. Honestly, since I dont have to check weather every two minutes, I am usually not using more than 200 MB for checking emails and using google maps. So my phonebill is about 30 EUR, including about 400 minutes of talk time...
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solarpos said 12:13PM on 5-20-2008
I was a previous ATT user so the only extra charges I incurred were the $20 for the data plan.
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Ryan Trevisol said 12:56PM on 5-20-2008
Ditto, except I already had the unlimited data plan for my V3xx and so it was the same cost.
MRCUR said 1:44PM on 5-20-2008
Same with me. I had a SLVR before I got the iPhone. So the increase for me was $20. I didn't have text or internet on my old phone.
Michael said 2:14PM on 5-20-2008
My bill went DOWN by $20 a month. The unlimited data plan for my Treo was $40/mo. the iPhone is only $20/mo.
matthew said 12:18PM on 5-20-2008
I switched from T-Mobile pre-paid to AT&T to get the iPhone. And I went from being a pretty much non-mobile phone user (usually under 100 minutes/month at 10 cents/minute, so $10/month or less) to using several hundred minutes a month and about 500-700 text messages per month. Split evenly, my portion of my family plan is probably $40-$50. But since I canceled Vonage I'm probably within the ~$20 increase in cost to switch to an iPhone.
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 12:20PM on 5-20-2008
I was with Cingular and vowed never to go back, but I didn't want the hassle of a jailbroken iPhone so I went back to AT&T.
Excellent experience and service.
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Bender Bending Rodriguez said 12:20PM on 5-20-2008
I was with Cingular and vowed never to go back, but I didn't want the hassle of a jailbroken iPhone so I went back to AT&T.
Excellent experience and service.
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Steve516 said 12:23PM on 5-20-2008
It does not seem like you are a heavy user...
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JaceFace said 12:24PM on 5-20-2008
I switched from T-Mobile to ATT and on our family plan we pay about $50 more than we did to TM. I will say, however, that we liked TM MUCH better. I'm sure the $50 has something do to with it, but the cell service seemed better and the customer service was certainly better.
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K said 12:25PM on 5-20-2008
and have a shorter (60 days vs 1 year) and possibly more hassle filled warranty (its with a third party).
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K said 12:27PM on 5-20-2008
god damn 1password got me again,
I was already with att too, but the iphone got me to add the 20 dollars data plan. I did get lucky in that my actual talk plan was 5 dollars cheaper and I got the 200 texts which save me another five, so only ten dollars more for me
Johnny said 12:27PM on 5-20-2008
I actually pay less. I had a Blackjack with AT&T before my iPhone and it was $20 more. I think a lot of it depends on wether you had a smartphone with a data plan before or not. The iPhone rates are actually very reasonable or right on par compared to other smartphones.
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chedda said 12:27PM on 5-20-2008
I was paying 19 bucks a month on my parents sprint family plan. I am not paying 110 after taxes for the iPhone. :(
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Sabon said 12:31PM on 5-20-2008
My old cell phone died three or four months before the original cell phones were announced and I had to get a new one. Due to Verizon's (at least where I live) much bigger coverage area I went with them.
I've been trying to decide as to whether to buy out that contract or not and then decided to wait until iPhone 2 to see what they do to "correct" some things on the first iPhone like the recessed headphone jack. I also want a GPS chip (not pseudo like GPS capabilities) built in so that I can have GPS software in my phone to give me audible driving direction to get from place a to b.
Yes I can get that built into my car (no thanks) or buy yet another device (no thanks) but why when the iPhone could have that too.
Rumor is that it will have the GPS chip in iPhone2. Plus a 3G chip which you can turn off to save battery life. And maybe even that recessed headphone jack won't be recessed, AND, there will be lots of 3rd party software, AND it will be a great iPod (including incar iPod with my Prius), AND does it cure cancer? Just kidding and NO I don't consider it a Jesus. How lame are those people that do?
I will be paying $14 more per month for the iPhone but then I will be getting 100 times the capabilities too. Gee, $14 or $19 for that? Count me in.
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Caitlin said 12:34PM on 5-20-2008
I've heard stories about people talking to AT&T people, and getting their contract-breaking fees waived for them by switching over.
aj_robins said 1:58AM on 5-21-2008
The iPhone as a car-GPS-replacement is likely to only work in areas with good EDGE/3G coverage (for constant downloading of maps). My guess is that the maps are unlikely to be stored on the iPhone. You're talking over a gigabyte, here, for US maps, and that's ignoring the international market. Spoken directions are probably going to be basic, if they exist at all in the V2 firmware (e.g., "turn left" instead of full spoken street names and directions).
Personally, I'll take a specialized car GPS over an iPhone one (at this point in time). It's not that an iPhone GPS won't be useful -- it will be -- it's just that the initial iPhone GPS feature set is likely to be poor compared to current car GPS units. The iPhone may catch up, someday, but my guess is that specialized car GPS units will be superior for at least another year, and that assumes that you stay in an area with great data coverage (forget about most mountain/skiing trips).
Gardner said 12:31PM on 5-20-2008
I switched from a crappy Sony clamshell to the iPhone, paying on average about $30 more per month. It's worth it for me, and my gf will be switching from her CRAPPY BlackJack to iP 2.0 when it drops.
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Caitlin said 12:32PM on 5-20-2008
Yep. Me too.
I was going for free for a couple years on my family's plan with Sprint. Switched over to AT&T for the iPhone. Got the smallest family plan with someone, though, so we are splitting the minutes (we don't use many minutes), and I'm paying an extra $20 on the bill for the data plan.
Comes to just under $60 each month including taxes. Pretty nice deal.
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Ivan said 12:32PM on 5-20-2008
lets see i paid about 130$ for 2 lines with unlimited text, internet and 1400 minutes, minutes started at 7pm and free weekends. that was a sweet deal with Sprint, now with ATT 1 line 130$ = 900 minutes, plus rollover, unlimited text, unlimited data. i lost some sweet stuff with the switch over like a line, video and picture messaging and the more minutes, but to be fair - i use mega amounts of data and text - and minutes i have about 6000 banked in rollover - so really i have no overages. for what the iphone gives me its a good pay off for the most part. i wish i could save some money though. like with Sprint they have unlimited all for 99$ for this ATT wouldmake me pay almost double that.
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