iPhone as a Go Phone?

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Ok. Just to level set, this post isn't for information about hacking iPhones, sticking it to the telco, or stealing service or the like.

I have an IPod touch that I carry around as a convenient tool for music, casual reading (yes, I have an iPad that is much better for that, but it doesn't fit in a pocket) and sometimes surfing when I am in a wifi zone. I have liked it since I bought it. Unfortunately, it is old and the battery is going.

So, I can get a used IPhone 3gs for peanuts and that is effectively the same as a touch, except that it is a phone also. I don't consider a phone to be a social tool, so I have an ordinary Go Phone that I pay by the minute and I probably average a minute a week. I have no interest in cellular data. By using the 3gs for both phone and touch, I can have it all in one package rather than two.

I took the sim card out of my non-smart (AT&T) phone and put it in the 3gs and it worked fine as a Go Phone, so I know that it works.

The question is, what does AT&T think about it? Do they care? Do their computers detect that I didn't buy a high dollar talk and data plan and they cut off all service? Get really mad and send a crew to my house and cut the hard line into twelve inch pieces all the way to the house, then shoot the cat?

Ask AT&T you say? That would be like asking your mother if you can stay out till 12 on a school night. Questions I know the answer to I don't need to ask, right?

Google, of course is your friend. And surfing on the subject I got the following answers in just about equal amounts - yes, no, maybe, sometimes, always and "I thought you could GO with all cell phones."

Anybody done this for real?
 

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Just an opinion, but I'm fairly certain that AT&T could care less what phone you use for "pay-as-you-go" services. The reason they force specific voice and data packages on you when you purchase a new iPhone is that the actual cost of the phone is $600+. They sell it to you for $200 and subsidize the rest of the phone by the fact that you have a 2 year commitment at a set rate.

Once that commitment is met, the subsidy is paid and the phone is essentially free and clear. So yeah, if you've got an iPhone that is bought and paid for, I see no reason why they could give two hoots as to whether you use it on a pay-as-you-go plan.
 

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I have been using an iPhone 3g for years now with AT&T Pay as you Go. Worked great till my jacket bunched up and pushed out the iPhone into the street and it got ran over before I could run to it! :D

Replaced it with a used 3GS and it continues to work with Pay as you Go. Sim did not get destroyed thank god.

Only issue is since you are not getting a plan, you have to pay full price for the iPhone. That is why I went used.

BTW, I asked an AT&T Rep and he said it's just fine as long as you pay for the phone! :D If any other AT&T person says otherwise, they are lying.
 
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chas_m

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I have my iPhone 2G as an AT&T GoPhone (since it's long past contract) when I'm in the states. Works great for what I need it for.
 
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Thanks everybody. Got my own 3gs today and it started working just fine as soon as I transfered the sim card and went though the phone setup.

Then I stopped by the AT&T store to get some more minutes and was kind of curious as to their attitude of my bypassing their hundred bucks a month plans. They didn't even comment on it. Just pushed the button to get the phone number, added the minutes to my iPhone and handed it back.

So I am down to carrying one device as planned.
 
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Where do I get an Iphone for "peanuts" as cptkrf
stated above? The AT&T site doesn't sell them. I personally could care less about the data plan and also love the iphone but not sure where I could buy an Iphone 4 fro a reasonably price. Anyone aware of somewhere? And not Craigs List please.
 
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I forgot to mention I do have an Iphone 3G atm. If I go to AT&T store can i sign up for ToGo with this phone?
 

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Thanks everybody. Got my own 3gs today and it started working just fine as soon as I transfered the sim card and went though the phone setup.

Then I stopped by the AT&T store to get some more minutes and was kind of curious as to their attitude of my bypassing their hundred bucks a month plans. They didn't even comment on it. Just pushed the button to get the phone number, added the minutes to my iPhone and handed it back.

So I am down to carrying one device as planned.

BTW, you can go online on the Go Phone site and add minutes if you want to.

To the other poster, there is no way to get a 4s for peanuts without a plan. He got a 3GS.
 
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Where do I get an Iphone for "peanuts" as cptkrf
stated above? The AT&T site doesn't sell them. I personally could care less about the data plan and also love the iphone but not sure where I could buy an Iphone 4 fro a reasonably price. Anyone aware of somewhere? And not Craigs List please.

Note that I got a used 3gs, not a 4s.

Gamestop online has used phones.

But if you live near a college you will find a bulletin board somewhere, loaded with phones for sale by students who want to upgrade. And who think that the 4s is actually 4g, and that it does something that the 3g series doesn't. Ok, besides listen to you speak for the five minutes before SIRI becomes a boring PITA.

I got mine, looking like new, from a student for 75 bucks and a round of coffee in the student center.
 
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I have a 3G atm, can I use that as a GoPhone?

One thing I have found this week, in regular stores that host AT&T, like Radio Shack, and phone kiosks in the mall, is that the employees will try to upgrade you to a calling package, but other than that, could care less if you are buying minutes for a disposable throwaway, or a top end iPhone.

I should have realized that over the years of using GoPhones. I never bought a package labeled GoPhone like you see in the stores. I would just stop by an AT&T franchise dealer and ask what kind of used phones did they have for sale. They almost always had returns, refurbished and loaners available. (But not iPhones). The price was usually 50 bucks, even for an originally high end phone like a Razor and suchlike. You never knew what they might have, but any would work as a buy-the-minute phone.

However, what the heck is a 3G atm?
 
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Hehe, sorry for the lazy typing. 3G Iphone "at the moment" (atm).
Thanks for the useful advice.
 

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I was using a 3g for years with Pay as you go before it fell and a car ran over it! Poor 3G!
 
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My post about how I found that nobody cared if you used an iPhone for a GoPhone has to modified. I was using it fairly heavy, so I stopped in a Radio Shack store to stock up on some minutes. A small town, not my usual RS. There was a young man at the counter and was perfectly happy to sell me a block of minutes, until he asked to see my 3Gs. At that point, he wavered back and forth between calling AT&T to report a major felony and lecturing me on how phones work. And how not only was there no way that an iPhone could be a GoPhone, but AT&T would cut off all my phone service if I tried it.

I didn't know that iPhones had a special data chip embedded in the motherboard, and that AT&T computers constantly scan the airwaves to look for it and if they don't find one they cut off all service. And possibly even send their attorneys out. And I certainly didn't know that GoPhones were made especially to only use the old voice circuits of the phone company. And some more information that I didn't quite understand, but filed with all the other BS that he was handing out.

At this point, I needed my debit card back and to get on the road, so I informed him that I had been using phones and hacking electronic equipment since long before that unfortunate day that his mother met his father, and could I see your manager, right now.

This was an elderly woman and, fortunately, sanity prevailed and she agreed with me that a phone was a phone, but that she certainly hadn't seen an iPhone being used as a buy-the-minute phone.

I got my minutes and hit the pavement.

So, iPhones as GoPhones aren't entirely a done deal for everyone out there.
 

dtravis7


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That person was so full of it it's not funny. I wish that was me there. I would have given him an education!

I have taken in my 3G and later 3GS into AT&T and never once had issues. That person is wrong. Been using an iPhone with pay as you go now for years. Never one issue. It's a phone. You can get a Data plan in fact WITH pay as you go for $20 a month. AT&T tried to sell it to me in fact. I declined as there is WiFi most places I go around here.
 
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That person was so full of it it's not funny. I wish that was me there. I would have given him an education!

You can get a Data plan in fact WITH pay as you go for $20 a month.

Well, he was a practically still a boy. I had the same problem once at Circuit City when a kid of about the same age refused to sell me a box of amplified computer speakers with a stand alone DVD player. He insisted that computer stuff wouldn't work with music equipment and I either needed to get a stereo amp and real speakers to go with the player, or, a computer to go with the amplified speakers.

Anyway, I didn't know that you could get a data plan with a GoPhone. Interesting. I don't have any urgent need anymore for online access away from home, but it would be nice to be able to check email on the road. Or to find out just what disaster just happened that the people at the next table are talking about.
 

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