AT&T Announces iPhone 3G Pricing
July 1st, 2008
The iPhone 3G will be available July 11, and today we got into the nitty-gritty – exactly how much this thing will cost. AT&T now has iPhone-specific information at their website. Also available there is a PDF that has the goods on the exactly plans and their particular monthly ransoms.
Notable are some “unlimited” plans – for $129.99 a month you get unlimited everything (phone calls, data, email, web, and visual voicemail). An unlimited text plan will cost you an additional $20 a month, bringing your AT&T contract to $150 a month if you want to truly be the most worry-free route. Tempting, but I’m not going there. I’ll likely go with the cheapest data and voice plan ($69.99) plus 200 text messages ($5) what with the miscellaneous taxes and fees ($15) will still put me out about $90 a month.
The fact that text messages are now unbundled from the data is slightly annoying (MG Sielger agrees).
Other notes:
- Very important to check out AT&T’s 3G coverage where you live. In the Bay Area it’s all dark blue, but getting out to more rural areas there is zippo. An unwary customer caught up in the iPhone hype could easily wind up paying for 3G but not able to use the faster service where they live.
- An amusing video from AT&T for customers eager to buy an iPhone. It advises people to bring photo ID and provide a social security number for a credit check.
- The activation fee for new customers are $36, and existing iPhone customers pay $18 for the upgrade.
- If you’re really adamant about eschewing the AT&T contract, you may be able to buy an iPhone outright for $599 (8GB) or $699 (16GB) – later. So all the jail-break-happy nerds should hold off for a while.
All in all, this iPhone purchase thing could get complicated quickly; hopefully people’s confusion won’t cause slowdowns on Friday with folks activating phones in-store. I’m planning to bypass all the first-day nuttiness and hit an Apple Store (most likely Burlingame) on Saturday, the 12th.
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Posted In: Apple
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I think it's ridiculous that they are not letting current AT&T customers upgrade their phones to the iPhone. It's almost cheaper to cancel your contract and then RE-SIGN-UP and buy they bigger phone. People who are upset by this need to MAKE SOME NOISE about it. Let's flood them with complaints and post comments on blogs like this. Let's go for it!