Data packages only avalable with monthly plans starting 4/18!!

[Jairzinho]

I just receive a text message from at&t:

On 4/18 data packages and auto renew will be only available with monthly plans. Pls move to monthly plan if you want 2 continue data package use.

Really at&t, REALLY??

[denhow]

Yeah I got that message too. I just added 500 Meg a few days ago. I hope the message means data packages are not available for purchase after the 18th. I'll be really pissed if the data I've already purchased stops working.

[adam917]

That message came in on my AT&T line too at 16:09:28 GMT. Oh well. I bet people were paying good money to have almost-no-strings-attached data on the GSM phones of their choice but AT&T decides that's not good enough. Hopefully the people who can will decide to switch to someone else in response. Glad T-Mobile works good enough where I am so I don't need AT&T's 'service'.

I guess they're switching to a model of getting a minimum of a certain amount of money from each customer every month (ARPU?). I wouldn't be surprised if in the not to distant future, all pure PAYG will be gone & one will have to commit (in the form of paying for) at least 30 days with anyone.

[dbaxter]

Just got the text message too. WTF AT&T!!! , is right.

I was happy staying with them before this, but guess I'll have to start shopping around for some other plan that won't require me to subscribe each month. Sounds to me like a monthly "contract" now if you want to keep all of your features, that's what the gophone per minute plan used to be all about, for those of us that don't use many minutes or much data.

Grrrr.

[Jairzinho]

This could effectively prevent any recognized smartphone in the 10c/min or $2/day plans from using any data at all (not even the expensive 1c/5KB PAYG data) as they cannot be used for data without a data package.

For someone like me who currently uses just 50-80 minutes and 100-150MB of data a month it might be a deal breaker. There is no way in hell I'll pay for at least 250min/month that I don't need (and can't even save for later - no rollover) at $25/month PLUS a data package.

I suspect those with the unlimited plan will also be affected. We'll have to wait until at&t decides to update their GoPhone webpage

This is a huge step backwards by at&t after the recent improvements. Most likely I'll get my data from another provider if this really becomes true.

[newcronos]

Just received this message and furious! WTH AT&T?

I still have 400+ MB in my account

[oglecowboy]

I bet they will cap thier data usage too when they make the switch. I just bought a att smart phone for big bucks (gophone sim) and even though it has wireless no data no mms which will suck

[aspen_boy]

so you can still use data on the $25/month plan? I really don't need that as I only talk about 20-30 minutes per month.

this really stinks.

[naranja]

ARRR! I just added a $100 for a year and already had over 1gig of data purchaced. Their website says " †Smartphone users must purchase a data package to use data services with any plan. Pay-per-use is not available with smartphones." Will my data expire on the 18th or be good till it's original expiry of 4/30?

[newcronos]

Right now it's anybody's guess naranja. I'm hoping that they only apply this to new accounts and your current data balance will still be good. However, even with the balance still good it's doubtful that they'll allow it to be renewed and rolled over every month with the $5/10 MB package, which means that over the course of the month after the change, you'll have to use it up, or lose it.

My current 400+ MB data balance will last me probably until August or September with the current system (with $5/month extension), so it really sucks if I have to use it up in April. The best thing about GoPhone pay2go is the minute balance-to-data balance conversion, which is really ideal for people with low minutes/low data use on pay2go. And now they're taking it away. This is happening in two weeks so I'm going to have to think fast about where to port my line.

[naranja]

I just got off the phone with att and basically I have to use up my data by the original expiration not the 18th. Not much help. I'm stuck with over a $200 balance but won't be usefull since after the end of this month I won't have data. No suprise, they would not even entertain refunding my unused balance. They offered to credit back $25 to that balance for one 500mb data package. I accepted this although its really no improvement since I'll never use up my balance on just minutes. My data balance didn't change but no help either since I won't come close to using the other 500mb that would still be in my account by the end of this month. They seem to want smart phone users off of their prepaid and looks like they'll succeed.

T-Mobile with it's slow connection (especially for iphone users) is probably a good option for the low data minute users or the $45 unlimited Straight Talk for the higher use customers. I'll be interested in seeing what others might reccommend. I use google voice forwarded to this cell so I don't have to worry about porting.

My options seem to be use a phone without data for the next ten months; switch carriers and give the sim away or try to sell it on ebay for something less than credit that's on it.

This is a poor show by ATT.

[newcronos]

Thank you for the clarification and taking the time to call in. I'm actually a little surprised that AT&T support is up to date about this issue and can already tell you what exactly their policy is.

Well that sucks. I will have one more extension coming up at the 14th, and that means I'll have to use everything up by May 13th. I'm going on a trip April 15th-18th so I'm just going to go crazy with my data usage then.

Thinking about where to port out (which is probably a little off-topic for this thread), T-Mobile is not an option for me (we don't have any coverage around here for some reason). Air Voice looks promising with the $10 monthly and great rate (4c/min-2c/txt), data is rather expensive at 33 cents/MB, but I just use it for emergency I think I can manage.

Edit: Btw, I haven't seen fonezfonz in this thread. Where is fonezfonz? we need to know what you think about this!!

[dmarkson]

This is the worst news in PAYG that I could of imagined. Somehow I can guess that preventing GoPhone on iPad was probably a huge factor here. Sure am glad I did not decide to do that. I wasted a $100 refill as well.

[tardis42]

Like many folks, I have a large remaining balance so I suspect I will burn that off with the $25 monthly plan + data usage, which would take me to the fall, when the next iPhone will likely be available, and the small refarming of T-Mo's 1900 spectrum for HDPA+, it does give me a option to jump over there even if the new iPhones doesn't support AWS spectrum.

But yeah, poor move at&t for trying to resist becoming a dumb data pipe, because that's all you are to me these days...

[silentjudge]

Things are getting really "interesting" in the prepaid space. It seems like a lot of different prepaids want to get people on a fixed-amount monthly plan. I wonder if AT&T did this to stop/discourage smartphone users on GoPhone who don't want minutes or they want to raise ARPU on the Prepaid side.

They got rid of some niche users with this change. Maybe a MVNO will fill the gap.