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AT&T To Offer No-Contract iPhone
rfc1394 writes "While the regular price of an iPhone is $199 if you take a 2-year contract with AT&T, if you're willing to pay a lot more you can get one without a contract. An article in InfoWorld mentions that 'Freedom will come with a price — $599 for an 8GB device and $699 for a 16GB — but this will mark the first time consumers in the United States are able to buy an iPhone without being tied down to a two-year contract. The phone probably would still be locked for use only on AT&T's network, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. But buyers could choose a pay-as-you-go plan for voice service.' The question still remains, does it make any sense to pay that much for a phone that is still locked to AT&T's network even if you aren't bound to a contract?" Update: 07/05 18:21 GMT by T : An anonymous reader suggests that there is a convoluted but possibly cheaper route to an new, unlocked iPhone.
So I buy a phone outright for $599/$699, or I buy a phone for $199/$299 with a 2 year plan ($36 activation fee) then cancel the contract immediately for $175...net cost $410/$510. Hmmmm.....
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Fail
As the ETF is probably only $150-200 or so, just get a phone for $200 and when you decide you hate AT&T, just break the contract.
What I worry about is this is the "tax price", so that in CA (and other states), you may pay $200, but you are paying tax on a $600 phone, which would up the cost to the end user an additional $33.
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Most phone companies have a stipulation in the contract that forces you to return the phone if you cancel the contract soon after starting it. In this case I would think that time would be about 6 months or so - enough time for them to squeeze out the 600/700 dollar cost.
"does it make any sense to pay that much for a phone that is still locked to AT&T's network even if you aren't bound to a contract?"
As Henry Ford once said of his Model T, "the customer can have any color he wants, so long as it's black." But only a cellphone company could call that a "custom color choice" and charge extra for it.
What if the phone gets "stolen"?
Well, you should have bought insurance.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
The price quoted probably is a fair price. They are subsidising it. But that is priced out of the U.S. market, it is even at the high end of the Japanese market.
That price is what the Apple should sell the phone for to other phone companies, and they will then be able to provide service and subsidize some portion of it. The only value this announcement has is to tell people how much the subsidy was. The other poster has it right, Fail.
Maybe but in the case of AT&T they do not:
Cancellations/Early Termination Fee: An Early Termination Fee of $175 may be assessed against you in the event that you terminate your Wireless Service Agreement and/or selected plan before the expiration of its term. For Service activated on or after May 25, 2008, the Early Termination Fee will be reduced by $5.00 for each full month toward your minimum term that you complete. You may cancel your service, for any reason and without incurring the Early Termination Fee, within thirty (30) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, PROVIDED, however, that if you cancel service you will remain responsible for any service fees and charges incurred. If you cancel within three (3) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, you will be entitled to a refund of your activation fee, if any. If you exercise this option, you may be required to return devices and associated accessories purchased in connection with your Wireless Service Agreement.
So you wait until the 4th day.
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In the UK, it looks like O2 will offer the iPhone on pay-as-you-go (that is, without contract), but for £199-ish (~$399), or, at the outside, £299 (~$599). The first is looking more likely. Nothing's been confirmed yet, though.
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You would need to pay for 1 month of your contract ($70 is the cheapest?), if you cancel before 30 days you have to return the phone. Also, there has been no confirmation of the early termination fee being $175 for the iPhone. (if it were to be $175 you would still end up getting the phone a bit cheaper than going with the no commitment option).
Australians will enjoy the ability to buy a pre-paid iPhone and unlock it to work on any network for $80.
They have allowed unlocking because the laws here don't allow you to lock a phone to a given provider without a reasonable option.
...If you exercise this option, you may be required to return devices and associated accessories purchased in connection with your Wireless Service Agreement.
So if you cancel your contract you don't necessarily get to keep the iPhone after paying the Early Termination Fee.
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When an OpenMoko is cheaper and has better hardware specifications?
Once you are out of contract, they are required by law to unlock your phone for use on any carrier, so selling a no-contract phone thats locked doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as they'd just have to provide an unlock code at your request anyway. I guess they'll probably do it just to make people who don't know any better use AT&T anyway.
Either way, the price makes buying an unlocked phone absolutely retarded. You pay the $199/$299 and pay the $175 contract early termination fee and save yourself some money. After paying the termination fee, they have to unlock your phone so you can take it where ever you want, sans visual voicemail of course.
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The contract reads: You may cancel your service, for any reason and without incurring the Early Termination Fee, within thirty (30) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, PROVIDED, however, that if you cancel service you will remain responsible for any service fees and charges incurred. If you cancel within three (3) days of signing your Wireless Service Agreement, you will be entitled to a refund of your activation fee, if any. If you exercise this option, you may be required to return devices and associated accessories purchased in connection with your Wireless Service Agreement.
Now, one could argue whether the last sentence applies to the 3 days or the 30 days. To me it looks like it only applies to the 3 day period. However, since we're trying to get the iPhone for as cheap as possible, and therefore we really don't want to argue it in court, we can use the 30 days, pay for phone service for a month--cheapest plan of course (after all, you are going to pay SOMEONE for phone service so why not AT&T for the first month?) -- then cancel the service.
As an aside, the $175 early termination fee for ALL contracts actually highlights that the fee has nothing to do with the supposed "charge to recover the cost of subsidizing the hardware". If it did then the fee would be tied to the cost of the hardware....but that's a soapbox for another time...
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Here in the States, you are always locked into a provider, even if the phone is popular enough to be sold be more by than one provider. If the iPhone is supposed to be the future of computing in general, I don't know why it's only being sold as a phone. Or is it really only best used as a phone with a few other features? With the software base so limited, it's hard to tell. I would think Apple would sell these outright to people who want a portable computer (and then force you into AT&Ts maw if you still wanted to poen up the phone function). Palm was brilliant to open development to all comers, but Jobs' need for control is crippling an otherwise highly advanced piece of electronics.
You can't buy insurance from the carrier for high dollar phones such as the iPhone. People that buy them will buy another one if it gets stolen ( Well, okay, I'm buying another one to replace my stolen iphone on the 11th ). And its not really profitable for them to charge you a $20 insurance fee for a phone that they actually have to pay for, unlike all the other give-away phones that they don't mind insuraning because they are so cheap that the fee they charge you when you make a claim is more than the phone costs them.
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Just FYI... the new data plan with AT&T is $30/month while the old plan (Edge) was only $20/month
SO with the new phone you're already paying $120/year more than previous... which means people are actually paying more money over the 2 year period... $199 + $240 (2 year contract) = $459
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The iphone was always available WITHOUT the 2 year contract from apple. I certainly never paid a 2 year contract when I bought my phone 9 months ago. Some people were able to activate w/ att without a contract is their credit was bad. Now, with the new plan, they're going to allow a subsidized version with a contract.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Just ordered my FreeRunner. Yes, it's $400, and yes it doesn't work perfectly yet but it's a big step up from what I have now (no phone at all) and the approx $10/month I will make in calls will be just fine with T-Mobile's PAYG vs being locked into yet another telco service contract.
The 3 day "trial" is a full 100% refund. The 30 day "trial" is the same thing, but you don't get your activation fee refunded ($36) (for days between day 4 and day 30). Given this, after 30 days, you have to pay (1) 1 months worth of service (2) $36 activation fee (3) 199/299 for the phone, and (4) termination fee of 175 - and quite possibly a pro rated second month of usage (if any).
It usually works that if you cancel within the 30 days, you return the equipment and you don't need to pay the ETF. However, if you decide you want to keep the equipment, you'll probably be required to pay the ETF even though you're within the 30 days.
Probably the same with the 3 day thing (though the wording is rather ambiguous). If you decide not to receive a refund of the activation fee, as well as pay the ETF, you can probably still keep the hardware.
Yup.
Here is Roger's Early Cancellation Fee for the IPhone:
"The ECF is the greater of (ii) $100 or (iii) $20 per month remaining in the service agreement, to a maximum of $400 (plus applicable taxes), and applies on each line in the plan that is terminated."
So waiting a month and then canceling will cost you $700 vs $175 with AT&T
[alk]
You either have bad credit or used the all-9's trick when you activated it. There was no publicized, formally sanctioned means for going prepaid with the original iPhone. I personally went the path of entering all 9's for my SSN, and I won't be buying an iPhone 3G. I wanted a significantly better iPhone; not this.
Wouldn't it make more sense to get the phone for $199 and pay them $200 for the contract termination fee?
Because I seem to hear lots of people laughing. Or are they crying? Hard to tell...
AT&T has explicitly said that even without a contract you still have a locked phone and the same choices for plans (i.e. minimum $70 a month +taxes and fees for voice/data, with no sms).
That doesn't sound like pay-as-you-go is allowed to me. Which is a shame, because if it was I might actually be interested. A $500 phone, $30 a month for data, and a hundred bucks for a year worth of minutes and SMSes is a better deal for me than a $200 phone plus $75+taxes+fees every month for more minutes than I use in a year.
AT&T needs to let people who don't use their phone as a phone that much buy what they want.
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Sorry you're wrong. Insurance is definitely offered on iphones. I guess you don't know what you are talking about or regret not buying the insurance yourself because I have an iphone and I have insurance @ 4.95 a month w AT&T. That's pretty standard for a smartphone. Verizon charged me the same insurance fee when I had a treo.
So waiting a month and then canceling will cost you $700 vs $175 with AT&T
If that is indeed the case, then I would be tempted to buy the iPhone elsewhere unlocked and just limit my data usage to wi-fi hotspots. I would be curious to see when the iPhone 3G comes out what ratio of people are using unlocked iPhones to Rogers purchased iPhones in Canada. Sure there is Fido, but that is Rogers by another name. Maybe the British were thinking of the Canadians when they coined the verb roger.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
All we need now are for some Canadians to reiterate how shafted they feel by their only GSM provider :)
Not just the monopoly GSM provider, but the CDMA providers as well.
Canada is in the dark ages when it comes to cell phones & service. The CEO of RIM (maker of the blackberry, a Canadian company) has said many times that the ridiculous prices of Canadian cell phone companies are impeding progress.
Canada has the highest prices in the western world when it comes to cell phones & service. As a result, just over half of the population has a cell phone. Compare with most of Europe when almost everyone has a cell phone.
The previous Liberal government fucked up big time when they allowed two big mergers (BC Tel with Telus, and Rogers with Fido), reducing the number of large providers from 5 to 3. Not surprisingly, prices went up quite a bit post-merger.
Canadian cell phone companies will whine and claim their costs are higher because Canada is such a large country with a small population. While that is true, the vast majority of the Canadian land mass has no cell phone service. The carriers are not incurring costs to provide service to areas of low population, they only provide service to cities & towns with sufficient population. As an example, Rogers (the only GSM carrier) provides service to about 2% of the land area of the province of Saskatchewan.
Canada's laws prohibit a foreign firm from operating a cell phone network. It's time to revisit this.
30-DAY CANCELLATION PERIOD/TERMINATION You may terminate this Agreement within thirty (30) days after activating service without paying an Early Termination Fee. You will pay for service fees and charges incurred through the termination date, but AT&T will refund your activation fee, if any, if you terminate within three (3) days of activating the service. Also, you may have to return any handsets and accessories purchased with this Agreement. If you terminate after the 30th day but before expiration of the Agreement's Service Commitment, you will pay AT&T an Early Termination Fee for each wireless telephone number associated with the service.
Seems clear to me. You go through with the contract or you pay the Early Termination Fee or you "may have to" return the phone - period.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Service may be cancelled after 14 days but within 30 days and early termination fee will be waived, but equipment may not be returned.
thanks for digging that up.
It is an interesting loophole and I wonder if they will close it or if it is there for some other reason it is worded like that.
from the perspective of a Dealer, this seems like a raw deal. For example, lets say half the people who buy new iPhones bring them back on the 15th day and want to cancel their contracts.
The Dealer has to do all this paperwork to cancel, they get no money for it and the customer gets to keep the iPhone.
Perhaps they are hoping people trying to take advantage of this will forget about the 14-30 day window.
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In addition to the added $10/month for the 3G plan, the new iPhone plans do not include any SMS. For $5/month you can get the 200 message plan that was included in the original iPhone data plan.
Although there has been a lot of talk that corporate/educational discounts will be available on iPhone plans for the 3G. So that could be a bonus, or in some cases could end up making the differences a wash.
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My iPhone sounds just as good as a land line.
So I buy a phone outright for $599/$699, or I buy a phone for $199/$299 with a 2 year plan ($36 activation fee) then cancel the contract immediately for $175...net cost $410/$510. Hmmmm.....
They're tricking you into thinking you're winning... and you fell for it.
It's better than I thought...current Terms of Service: ((4) iPHONE TERMS AND CONDITIONS): Terms Applicable to AT&T Nation/FamilyTalkî GSM Plans: Credit approval required. Subscriber must live and have a mailing address within AT&T's owned network coverage area. An early termination fee applies if service is terminated before the end of the contract term. The fee will begin at $175 per device and decrease by $5 each month for the term of the agreement. If phone is returned within 3 days, activation fee will be refunded. If phone is returned within 14 days in like-new condition with all components, early termination fee will be waived. Service may be cancelled after 14 days but within 30 days and early termination fee will be waived, but equipment may not be returned. All other charges apply. Some dealers impose additional fees. So they explicitly say that you can cancel the service between 14 and 30 days, avoid the early termination fee, but don't have to return the iPhone.
So, we can buy the iPhone outright for $599/$699 or we can get a contract and cancel it after 14 days (but before 30 days) and pay a net of $235/$335.
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So even if you fork out the full price for an unlocked iPhone you can still only use it on AT&T anyways? Absurd! With all of iPhone/Apple/AT&T restrictions it's amazing that people are still flocking in masses to buy the gadget. SHEEP!
Jessica
It's always possible to game the system if you're willing to defraud it sufficiently. I mean, hey, I need more money, what if my bank gets "robbed"?
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Yes it makes sense to buy the phone because you will get it unlocked and shipped to other countries that do not have an IPhone provider. Whether it makes sense for an enduser consumer is a different story.
I think that it will be a max of $400, not $700. The line you quote caps the max ECF at $400.
What I find more appalling is that it is a 3 year contract. That is a long time to be tied to one carrier.
Really points out that the Neo Freerunner isn't really a bad deal, like some people were trying to claim in an earlier thread. Hardware capabilities almost as good as or matching an iPhone, and *no* contractual obligations, for $400. If $600-$700 is what they'd need to sell an iPhone for when the "locked into a contract" subsidy is removed, it sounds like the Freerunner is at a very reasonable price point, just ignoring all of the "open" aspects to it.
"That's Nietzsche. He killed my father." -- Jesus, "Jesus Christ Supercop"
If you're going to use it with them anyway, I think paying full price would only make sense if you got the phone fully unlocked that way and COULDN'T just plug it into your computer and run an app to hack it wide open.
You are paying $70/month for a portable communications device with full internet access, just about anywhere you go.
There could be many people who do not care or need internet access. But I would think most Slashdot readers would not be among them.
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Not really comparable. The iPhone has a multitouch touchscreen (the Freerunner might, eventually, if someone puts a lot of effort into the driver) and is 3G (in the version being discussed now), while the Freerunner is crippled with GPRS.
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Personally I thought the current iPhone phone quality, has been OK. But in the next model they did improve the speakers, and possibly also the mic.
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"The question still remains, does it make any sense to pay that much for a phone that is still locked to AT&T's network even if you aren't bound to a contract?"
Even a penny would be too much to pay for a locked phone.
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See those quotes around "stolen"? That means it's not REALLY stolen. So you buy the phone for $299, activate for $36, cancel for $175, and you can't be forced to return the phone because it got "stolen."
Now from this point, is it as easy as going to another provider and having them swap the SIM?
As long as it's your own bank account, I don't think anyone will mind.
no, you could just ask for a prepaid instead of a contract... I was in line on I-day 2007 and 3 people ahead of me in line did this with no problems.
The fact that on all aspects of the service plans for the phone, there is a dearth of information and clarity just speaks to how sucky ATT is as a company to deal with tho. You could very well have had a completely different experience at your local ATT store.
Chuck
does any care that jobs said you can get the iPhone for $199, or $299 for the upgrade... how then can at&t legally gouge customers? especially if they are not allowing customers to extend contracts if you are within your first year on your current devices. sounds bunk to me.
--- haasta IT consultant | Web Programmer
That's a really good point.
Can't say I wouldn't laugh, either - entering into an agreement with every intention of breaking it, and being willing to file a fraudulent police report just to save yourself some money? What a world class fucking citizen you are.
Big "days" in history:
Great moments in time. Well, if you believe the Apple faithful, anyway.
With their "Slider" you have to buy a $100 'everything plan. So you get the phone for $130 and then you fork out $1200/year for the service.
Far from apple faithful here... though I do own a number of their products. Plenty of bad product launches on apples part, and plenty of poor customer experiences.
Apple just seems to have hit on the correct stance to take when it comes to dealing with the media:
Dont say anything unless you will benefit directly.
They avoid all kinds of negative publicity this way.
Chuck
What if the phone gets "stolen"?
Then you might get accused of "fraud".
There's no way (as of yet) to change the iPhone's ESN, so if you report the phone stolen, you can expect the ESN to be barred from US networks (and EU ones, come to think of it) -- and if you try to use it, an alert will be triggered (assuming that AT&T's policies are anything like the policies of the carriers in the EU when it comes to stolen phones.)
The real litigious bastards...
Hell, if the Nokia's technically comparable, that's a really low "Apple tax". Typically the Apple label costs more like forty percent, not thirty bucks.
If you cancel within 30 days you return the phone, not keep it.
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
I'm pretty sure the bank will mind greatly if you steal money from your own account, then report it as stolen and tell them you expect them to refund you for failing to protect it.
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It's the law in France that handsets have to be sold unlocked. So if you find yourself on the continent anytime soon, it would probably be a lot cheaper to just buy one there.
(Incidentally, I'm going to France in October and plan on doing exactly this. Anyone do this with the 2.5G model and any tips? Thx)
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
What more did you want that would have made it significantly better? Blowjobs?
I kid, but I am curious what features you wanted.
If you have insurance, its because they don't realize you have an iPhone, did you have insurance before you bought the iPhone? Its likely the just didn't turn off the billing.
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Well, the only other choice is T-Mobile. Is T-Mobile that much better/cheaper than AT&T?
Sprint, Verizon and the others are not GSM....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I am sorry to say that the "update" from www.phonenews.com looks like a bit of a scam.
First of all because the whole sceme depends on your ability to sell multiple items through eBay. And secondly because the "story" is pushing readers to sign up for a contarct using a direct link in the article - but the link looks very much like an "affiliate link" for AT&T.
If that is correct then www.phonenews.com is making money every time a users signs up for that contracts. And their credibility goes right down the drain.
It leaves the readers with the following two questions:
1.) Should I engage in the described theme which claims to get me a cheap iPhone but is in fact depending on selling stuff through eBay to cover the losses from the preceding transactions?
2.) Did they write this article in order to cash in on the affiliate link, or did they write it because the actually believe it is a good way to get a cheat phone? (Which leads to a third question: Can I trust a "news site" which tries to trick me into signing a contract so they can make money from the referral?)
- Jesper
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
Most US carriers don't respect the ESN blacklist.
How on earth is this modded flamebait? It is entirely accurate and represents what is wrong with the majority of slashdot moderators these days... are we advocating intentionally breaking the law for financial gain?
I'm kind of shocked that that update made it into the article. Aside from the fact that it isn't fully tested, they're asking you to "trust us" and click on the links in the article _which are all affiliate links_. This looks like a blatent money-grab and it shouldn't be part of the article.
I was thinking along the lines of withdrawal, not actual theft of your own money.
Actually I wonder... You can't "steal" money from your own account, it's your own money! Legally I'm pretty sure the only illegal part would be to report it as stolen. But then again IANAL.
Yes, just like the only illegal part of having your iPhone "stolen" would be the report. It's fraud, not theft.
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Oops, wrong thread! The above post belongs in this thread: News: There's a Sucker Converted Every Minute . "What's the best tech scam you've heard of lately?"
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If get a second mortgage on your home, you can buy a prepaid iPhone and pay to have it unlocked by the carrier in Australia.
here
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GSM phones have no ESN. IMEI is the keyword you are looking for.
LB
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"...this will mark the first time consumers in the United States are able to buy an iPhone without being tied down to a two-year contract. The phone probably would still be locked for use only on AT&T's network, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. But buyers could choose a pay-as-you-go plan for voice service.' The question still remains, does it make any sense to pay that much for a phone that is still locked to AT&T's network even if you aren't bound to a contract?"
then it won't be. it isn't (does not *become*) a PHONE until it IS tied to the SAME single carrier. so, then this FA is, what, very poor writing? a FOX news audition? what?
This insurance concept on phones is interesting. Up here in Canada we definitely have no option to purchase insurance on our smartphones. I work for one of the major wireless companies up here, and regularly field calls where people have lost or had their phone stolen. Pretty much they're looking at purchasing a new phone, possibly with a discount, but no insurance policy replacements, that's for sure.