AT&T says SIM-only service available contract free, 2-year plan was a mistake
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted January 22nd 2008 2:16PM
posted January 22nd 2008 2:16PM
posted January 22nd 2008 2:16PM
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Indeed. I did click the link, but figured giving the explanation made the comment less funny. Thanks though for ruining that. ;)
Also amused by the claim 'phones reported lost or stolen' won't work. They will. It's all in the sim card, baby.
Holy crap.... So signup with no phone on a monthly contract, then buy the same exact phone new on Ebay for the same price ATT wants for one with service... LOL...
Just talked to ATT rep. The sim is $5 when you order over the phone. No contract pay as you GO.
http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/go-phones/pyg-plans-phones.jsp?WT.svl=calltoaction&ContentId=900310&_requestid=669615
Ok, I am a little slow to the whole cell biz... So does this mean I can now pay a normal monthly cell plan to ATT without having to have a damned 2yr contract? Do I have to bring my own phone or does it have to be one of their models?
You can use your own phone as long as it is unlocked. Of course Pay as you GO cost more pre minute than contracts planes
LOTS and LOTS of AT&T employees have no idea there has LONG been an option to sign someone on without a contract. Post-paid, normal service. The kind you can move your number to and from. You just have to find someone that knows it's there/how to do it. There are also likely to be those that know, but want the commission they'll get from a contract, so you have to watch out for that, too. Your best bet is a corporate store, not a reseller. Resellers CAN do it, but a lot of them will probably forbid the employees to sign people up that way. No upside for them.
I know this is all true because I worked for a reseller and signed myself up for the plan, careful not to choose a contract. When I turned it off, the customer service rep started telling me about the early termination fee. I said check again and she sounded genuinely surprised when she saw how it was set up. -Hope this helps.
Not for a long long time though. Well, wait, you mean ATTWS or Cingular? Cingular used to let you activate no contract but didn't include free mobile to mobile. Even that stopped a couple years ago.
So I pay $5 for the sim card then I put it in my old phone right? Then if I don't want to have GOphone then won't I need a contract which would defeat the whole purpose of this deal.
I think they realized their mistake pretty quickly.
I called Customer Care yesterday morning when I found out about the two year contract with the SIM. I asked them if I could activate a phone without a contract, if I provided my own phone. CS told me no. I guess they didn't get the memo.
OK, to clear this up a bit... There is no IPhone specific SIM card, but i must admit the iPhone is a bit tricky. This one time i placed my SIM card from my iPhone running 1.1.2 into an iPhone running 1.1.1 and it didn't work... It said connect to iTunes to activate so i connect to iTunes and the ATT activation wizard came up. By the way both phones were already activated legally through ATT originally. I just wanted to switch phone with friend... So to avoid activating the phone again with my SIM card in it which is already activated on my iPhone, i just updated that iPhone to 1.1.2. Good so now it is running the same version as my iPhone... guess what it completely re-locked the phone as if it was just purchased, i couldn't even use the main menu or anything before even if my friend put back in his iPhone SIM... It just completely locked it self and only way is to put in one of our SIM and do the activation process again. Problem to that is, by doing that to unlock the phone even when you choose already ATT customer in iTunes you just wanna transfer number and so on... On your next bill you will be slapped with the ETF and you have to call up ATT and explain to them and crap. There is no iPhone specific SIM but be careful the iPhone is a pure trickster so i think this SIM free off contract will not work, it will probably ask you to connect to iTunes to activate when inserted, i think its some kind of security feature in the newer iPhone firmware to prevent stolen iPhones from being activated, the user may think twice before activating a stolen iPhone when it ask him to connect to iTunes, remember you have to input personal info during the activation process...
Also how do i know you will be slapped with the ETF even if you choose to transfer your number when activating the iPhone? Because it happened to me before... My original iPhone was taken to the Apple store to do some repair on it, so i took out my original SIM just like the apple rep told me to... Fast foward... Apple lost my iPhone and gave me a brand new one in the box sealed and all. So i got home put my SIM i took out from my lost iPhone into the new iPhone and it didn't unlock, i said you know what let me just use the SIM that came with the new iPhone, so i choose transfer existing number in the ATT setup in iTunes and choose over the same plan, txt and so on... When my bill came i was slapped with the ETF lol i forgot how much it was, i think it's like $200. I had to call ATT and explain the whole Apple lost my iPhone and they gave me a new one. Thankfully the lady was nice and removed the ETF :-)
Life is good. I'm so getting a P905i (yes, there's an unlock, and it has 850MHz 3G so I get to take advantage of AT&T's 3G also).