AT&T offers SIM-only service, attempts to maintain "most open" status
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted January 20th 2008 7:31PM
posted January 20th 2008 7:31PM
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posted January 20th 2008 7:31PM
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Ah. Sim cards. Shame I'll never know them. Stuck on Sprint.
@ Johnny, or anyone else
if Sprint indeed closes and I still have ~7 months on my contract left, does this mean that I can go out and find another carrier or will Sprint sell the rest of it to another company?
Anybody know? I really want a SIM card phone so I can use it in Korea!
Dude...Korea uses CDMA primarily....and WCDMA to a lesser extent. If you had a phone that was WCDMA with a USIM it would be possible...but not a GSM sim. Don't get your hopes up.
Umm...
Well, atleast AT&T doesn't lock down their bluetooth profiles, like some other companies we know...
Verizon & Sprint come to mind!
Sprint doesn't lock down their bluetooth profiles. Been speeding with their EV-DO just fine and dandy! :)
uh..yes they do...
What evidence do you have that at&t doesn't modify their bluetooth stacks? I coulsn't get my phone to tether until I got a data tethering plan ($70/month), than it magically works. (at&t, blackberry 8820)
wut u talkin bout trancer?
the question is, does it really matter? I can have headsets on my voyager... I can send pictures to others... I can print wirelessly... I can send/receive files over OBEX... that's how I was getting my sounds/wallpapers to my voyager until bitpim (easier to use the cable that verizon included for free.. faster and charges the phone)... so it looks like they're actually lifting the bans... really easy on their smartphones.. (I've had two verizon winmo phones).
so all you GSM guys will have left is "it's compatible in another country" pretty soon... and I don't travel.. so not being able to make a call in my house with GSM phones has been a non-issue for a long time.. now MAYBE if t-mo had some decent phones on HotSpot it would be a different story.. but forget AT&T.
EVDO? that doesn't sound like Bluetooth to me...
It was my understanding that this has always been an option... Allbeit I less known one.
For the privilege of signing up contractless, one would have to give up M2M and other specials.
My sprint bluetooth profile isn't locked, and I don't believe my brother's bluetooth profile is locked either (I have a Treo he has a KRZR).
They did lock mp3 ringtone support on the Centro (and I think the Treo also), but since it's a Palmphone its not entirely impossible to bypass, heh.
Either way, it's a lot less restrictive than Verizon and their idiotic way of making everyone use that hideous GUI.
That's not exactly free and open if you have to sign a two year contract. Look at T-Mobile they're doing the sim only service with out contracts.
yeah how an you enjoy your freedom when you have to sign a contract
Uh, satellites? Nice try. This is AT&T, not Inmarsat.
well, yeah, but the cell towers use a satellite signal.
Well, yeah, except you're wrong again. But the only satellite signal that a tower would use is a GPS one for timing...they have T1s going to them - or some relay off of each other when you're in places like BFE, Iowa. Perhaps I should submit your ability to pull stuff out of your ass with no source/prior knowledge and present it like it's fact to our friendly friends at Fox and friends? Asshat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_site
I dont see why anyone would do this when you can just get a free phone for signing up anyway..
More specifically find a mobile shop that can get the unbranded/unlocked phone you want and sign up for a new contract through them. I got a new [unbranded/unlocked] K850i for $250 when I signed up.
Because this way youll still be able to get an upgrade discount on your next phone purchase, and you wouldnt if you got the upgrade at time of signup
if they aint giving any phone free with it... then why the 2 year contract ? i thought the 2 year contract was to recover the cost of the phone.. ( though the iphone defies this logic ).
and of you are anyways gonna get roped in for 2 years.. better get one with a phone. you can always pop the SIm card in your phone and use the free one as a backup.
I really dont get the logic behind this scheme !!
The cost of the phone on a two year contract has never been the main reason for the contract (with the iPhone an exception, due to AT&T's payment to Apple). 1-2 year contracts with all carriers take care of customer-acquisition costs (advertising, line provisioning, network maintenance, customer service call centers and non-paying subscribers.) The same principle applies to credit cards
Do the math. If the average carrier's customer AMR (average monthly revenue) is, say, $50, the customer is agreeing to pay at least $1,200 over a two-year term. Plus, along the way, many customers will purchase additional products and services (ringtones, wallpaper, text messaging and, best of all, data plans). Data plans, whether for BlackBerry email or smartphone Web access) produce the highest profits.
Now that AT&T has 65 million customers, it can afford to do what carriers in Europe, the U.K. and Asia have done for years--give you a SIM card. The big difference? If you live in EuroAsia, you can buy SIM cards in multiple countries and swap them out of your GSM phone as you travel, without a contract in most cases.
Verizon and Sprint customers. Although your phones don't have SIM's (your service is tied to ESN's hard-wired into your phones), the amount of $$$ you're committing to V and S over a two year contract is similar.
I don't understand it either.
The whole point of SIM only deals (in Europe, at least) is that the carrier isn't subsidizing the price of the phone.
Thus, you get cheaper line retail and a 1 month minimum contract period.
AT&T seem to be giving customers the worst of both worlds!
i agree with you JamBob. in the name of openness, its like we are being cheated. if they would just remove the clause for the 2 year contract, i would truly believe AT&T is trying to become a more "OPEN" carrier.
I wonder what the no contract version cost?
no US carrier offers a "plan" with no contract, only the pay-as-you-go
So, what's the benefit? Can't I just get one of their free phones and swap that SIM card into an unlocked phone and save the $5, plus have a back-up phone? If there's no discount on service and you still have to get the contract, what's the point?
I'm wondering the same thing. If you're getting a 2 year contract anyways, why not get a free backup phone?
T-Mobile Flexpay for the win!
In the UK, you can pick up a pay-as-you-go sim for free. This is probably because it costs the makers nothing, and can only bring them in revenue due to people switching (if it costs nothing, why not). However, everyone's uses contracts anyway, so it doesn't matter that much.
Europe and even Latin America have been ahead of the US in phone services like those... For people that travel a lot, those pay as you go sims are priceless. I really don't understand why the US is so behind of the curve.
Yeah, it's a bit wierd that a country where 'consumer choice' and 'competition' are supposed to drive growth there isn't much of either.
Two points.
1. This isn't a PAYG SIM - it's a SIM-only contract like O2's SIMplicity.
2. Most people aren't on contracts, PAYG users out-number contract users by a huge margin.
I got my prepaid sim from AT&T free here when getting it for my N95, maybe it was a isolated case?
LOL sign a 2 year contract? Nonsense, I walked into my local ATT retail store with a unlocked 8125, they gave me a sim card, and BAM, month to month service with no contract :)
Note I did this 1 1/2 years ago :)
well duh! one and a half years ago. I mean this isnt exactly the same offer they had a while ago, hence the reason they are posting it...I doubt that engadget is a year and a half behind
Can someone please fill me in. Would it be possible to give the
iPhone 3G capabilities if it had an iPhone designed 3G chip? Opposed
to having built in 3G? Thanks. -Steve
you're talking nonsense
Why? If this chip can bring 3G to other devices why can't it be adapted to the iPhone? That doesn't sound too ridiculous to me.
You don't get 3G from a little SIM card! If your phone doesn't have a 3G radio in it, then...NO 3G FOR YOU!
The chip basically tells the provider who you are. It might store texts and contacts too. It has very little to do with the actual telephony of the device.
Oy vey.
just sprinkle some crack on it
C'mon, give him a break, not all of us are cell phone mavens. Stephen, it's what Mark said, the ability to receive the 3G signal depends on the phone's hardware, not the SIM card.
BTW, remember fellow Engadgeteers, this is a forum allowing the for free enchanging of knowledge, it's not like Stephen was arrogant or anything. Remember, the only time we flame is when people ask:
Does it blend? Or, my personal not-favorite: Does it play doom?
--------
Also, "just sprinkle some crack on it" = xDDDDD
To all the guys with stupid comments. There's really no need to act like a BITCH. Stephen is asking a simple "non techy" question so it would be polite to answer appropriately. Really no need to stop being a lady.
As has been said here before, the SIM doesn't do anything for 3G. Having such a SIM doesn't won't add 3G capabilities to your iPhone as it doesn't have the hardware support for it.
In fact...the pictured SIM is the exact same type that comes in the iPhone...3G fireball icon and all.
"The idea being, of course, that you can bring any random / crappy / salvaged GSM-compatible handset the provider's way, and it'll let you hook a towline onto its satellites."
One can also bring in cool FCC unapproved/pending approval handsets into the country and use them here if you travel alot. This is a good thing for me because America has really shitty phones.
No. You can not use any old handset--especially older AT&T Wireless TDMA phones. In fact, when Cingular merged with Bell South and AT&T Wireless disappeared, many former AT&T Wireless customers were livid, because they were getting excellent reception on AT&T's analog network. Switching to Cingular's digital network, in many cases, lowered signal strength and call quality when analog handsets were swapped out with digital handses. A digital handset is required for AT&T service.
I think it's understood that there exist a constraint on "any headset" that it must be compatible with AT&T's current wireless network.
I don't think this offering is very novel as I have friends and family that have activated SIMs with the network previously known as Cingular to avoid having a contract. Looking at AT&T's page for this offering I think it is even less attractive than when we did activations before; there appears to be a 2 year contract attached to this (and I'm used to only commiting to a contract if I am getting a discount or something else significant in excange for the commitment).
But I agree, American phones are rather lack luster. I stick to ordering euro-spec phones since there seems to be far less feature supression going on outside of the US.
Er, I'm fairly certain AT&T was doing this before.. my friend bought an imported v3x from Amazon, went to AT&T (Cingular at the time) and asked for a SIM card with a service contract, and they gave him one. He never got a subsidized phone, just the SIM.