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Have You Read the AT&T Fine Print for Your iPhone Plan Yet?

Posted July 16, 2007 7:00 AM by Gregory Ng
Categories: AT&T Legal 

imageWe are quickly approaching the one month date since the release of the iPhone. What that means is we will start to see our first AT&t bills soon. I don’t know about you, but all I really cared about last week was getting an iPhone and what the advertised cheapest plan was to hook up with it. But now, the high has subsided and I am back to the realities of paying bills and watching my minutes.

here is a great resource for understanding the fine print of your AT&T contract. Granted, it is a tad slanted in the “what the hell are you thinking signing on with AT&T camp” but it is still very informative. Among the topline points:

-Using the iPhone requires a 2-year contract with AT&T.
-Expensive: Requires approximately $2,280, over $1,730 in wireless costs.
-Double billing. You and the caller both get charged for the same call.
-All uses of the network are always rounded up to the nearest kilobyte or minute.
-Customers can be billed for “network errors” and “network overhead”.
-Customers can be billed even though the call doesn’t go through, even if it is the networks’ fault. Customers also get charged for unsolicited messages.
-Bogus fees are added to the bill including the Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge.
-$175.00 “Termination” fee is now standard.
-International messages are charged additional fees as are files over 300Kbps.
-Over your quota: get gouged: 40¢ per minute and 69¢ per minute roaming offnet.
-“Unlimited” Service is mostly hype.
-Top speed seems to be 200Kbps, standard-speed wireless in Asia is 15+ times that.
-The services are not secure and can’t block your phone number.
-Prohibited uses include VOIP, like Skype or Vonage.
-“Except for content formatted in accordance with AT&T’s content standards, unlimited plans cannot be used for uploading, downloading or streaming of video content (e.g. Movies, tv), music or games…”
-Service is not intended to provide full-time connections.
-Wi-Fi service is limited.
-The current mobile email service doesn’t support attachments.
-If the customer uses the service too much, or does ‘offnet’ calls, they can be terminated.

Read the full text as well as in-depth commentary on every major restriction here. Then take a deep breath and remind yourself how much you love your iPhone.

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Comments

  1. Don’t get what you’re trying to say here, as all of the above (except the 2nd item) are true when you sign up to a contract with any of the other carriers in the US.

    As regards the 2nd item, the cost may vary depending on what you want, but the iPhone contract is very cost competitive with any of the others.

    So what are you trying to say?  People sign up to this stuff and use Treos and Blackberrys.  Do those people need to love their phones too?

    Posted by mark on July 16, 2007 8:41 AM

  2. Outside the U.S., it is $20 for each MB received.

    Spam alone can cost you hundreds of dollars during a few week’s vacation, let alone actual e-mail you receive or send.

    Don’t take iPhone overseas.

    Blackberry drones, on the other hand, can pay $65 for unlimited global data, which is not available to iPhone.

    Posted by Xavier Itzmann on July 16, 2007 8:48 AM

  3. This just repeats what other blogs have said and much of this is standard stuff with other providers as well.  Plus it seems only with the iPhone is the cost of the two year contract even mentioned, but its equally true of all other phones.  Whatever contract you agree to you have to pay.  What is so unusual about that.  Its just hype to attract hits, nothing of value here.

    Posted by Paul on July 16, 2007 9:13 AM

  4. “Outside the U.S., it is $20 for each MB received.

    Spam alone can cost you hundreds of dollars during a few weeks vacation, let alone actual e-mail you receive or send.

    Dont take iPhone overseas.”

    All you have to do is set your email retrieval settings to “MANUAL” and not check your email.  Then you are fine with phone and SMS availability.  I have traveled to Europe with my AT&T/Cingular phone many times without a problem.  With email checking set to manual you are in the driver’s seat when it comes to data charges.  SMS from Europe is still one of the best values when it comes to inexpensive communication back to the States.

    Posted by Al on July 16, 2007 9:25 AM

  5. Are you iPhone haters so full of hate that you have to take standard talking points from almost any US Cell provider and make it seem like AT&T and Apple are turning the screws on just iPhone users?

    Maybe you’ve never had a cell phone before, or maybe you haven’t read the fine print before on ANY plan.  These points are no surprise to anyone that has.

    However, at least it’s not like sucky Verizon who locks down the phone on you, at least you CAN use your iPhone’s feature set as intended.  And I just love it when Verizon says that they modify the phone’s behavior to protect their customers and network operation.  Yeah, sure… Protecting Verizon’s income is more like it.. Allowing you to transfer photos and ringtones over bluetooth would actually be better both for the customer AND Verizon’s network, but that doesn’t matter.

    And, as a final comment, I’ve yet to see a cell plan that advertizes ‘unlimited’ data that really means unlimited.  At least in the US.  They all have restrictions over certain kinds of restricted activiities and sometimes hidden caps on total transfer quota that if you go over they *ASSUME* you must have violated the terms of service and will terminate you.

    Kudos to all the phone manufacturers that keep trying to make neat features and then have the cell companies give them the shaft by not letting the consumers take advantage of them.

    Posted by Steve Palm on July 16, 2007 9:37 AM

  6. some of the items doesn’t make sense. like,

    -The current mobile email service doesnt support attachments. [huh?]

    -Wi-Fi service is limited.[if they mean not every place has wifi you can connect too. otherwise, what are they saying?]

    Posted by dub on July 16, 2007 9:44 AM

  7. @Dub: The e-mail attachments comment refers to e-mails received wirelessly. They do not support attachments. Attachments are supported by emails you sync over from your computer.

    Posted by Jens on July 16, 2007 11:01 AM

  8. “However, at least its not like sucky Verizon who locks down the phone on you, at least you CAN use your iPhones feature set as intended.”

    What, like stereo Bluetooth headsets and Bluetooth file transfers that everybody gave Verizon such a (deservedly) hard time about? The iPhone doesn’t do those either. The iPhone isn’t locked down to AT&T? wink

    Posted by jsk on July 16, 2007 12:07 PM

  9. “The e-mail attachments comment refers to e-mails received wirelessly. They do not support attachments. Attachments are supported by emails you sync over from your computer.”

    Huh?  I don’t recall seeing that you couldn’t retrieve your emails with attachments over the cellular network.  Have you tried this and it doesn’t work, or can you cite a link?

    Posted by Dave Marsh on July 16, 2007 1:38 PM

  10. jsk:

    There is a world of difference between locking a phone to a network and locking a phone down so that you can’t even use the features the manufacturer included. And although I don’t speak for Apple, I’ve heard several times that the file transfer is forthcoming, not sure about A2DP.  It’s not even in OSX Tiger, although I hear Leopard will have it.

    Posted by Steve Palm on July 16, 2007 5:05 PM

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