AT&T Is Screwing Over US iPhone Users | Hacker News Reader

AT&T Is Screwing Over US iPhone Users

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Go check out the fine print where AT&T wants $400 from you to break the contract on your existing 3G and buy the 3GS.

There are lots of good examples of AT&T screwing iPhone customers. This is a bad example. Apple sets the price on the device. If AT&T has already subsidized an Apple device for you in exchange for a contract, and you haven't completed the contract, how do you argue that AT&T owes you another phone?

Unless the rep I spoke to an hour ago was hiding something, the cancel-early fee is only $125. Then, you're free to get a new-contract-subsidized phone from AT&T or anyone else.

That makes the righteousness of a $400 differential for existing 3G contractholders a little incongruous.

Update: According to MobileCrunch, the 'early upgrade' prices for 3G owners are just +$200, not +$400, over the fully-subsidized prices. That make a lot more sense -- both compared to the early-cancellation penalties and a pro-rata accounting for the previous subsidy. See:

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/06/08/want-to-upgrade-to-an...

This doesn't make sense. It would only cost 150 for me to break my existing contract.

You'd think they would be thrilled to have your contract extended a further two years. I just don't see the rational in punishing their customers.

Rational: Next quarter's profits. We'll worry about 6 quarters from now when we get there.

Is this confirmed? There wasn't a penalty on iPhone 2G -> 3G upgrades, and the keynote mentioned the $199 price was for new and qualifying customers.

"AT&T customers who want to upgrade from another phone or replace an iPhone 3G, the price with a new two-year agreement is $499 (8GB), $599 (16GB), or $699 (32GB)."

http://www.apple.com/iphone/buy

AT&T is building up so much ill-will for their terrible network, god help them should they ever lose iphone exclusivity.

Wow. The fee to early-cancel is (at least for my iPhone 3G) only $125. So it's cheaper to cancel-and-rebuy ($125 + new-with-contract-cost) than upgrade ($400 + new-with-contract-cost).

There does not appear to be a waiting period for rebuying, at least according to the rep I just spoke with. In fact, while I did not specifically ask about the 3gs, she seemed to imply the optimal path might be (1) add a new line (qualifies for new pricing); (2) cancel old line (paying the early-cancel fee).

I assume if you take that path, you'd end up with a new number, which is kind of annoying.

If you add the line then transfer the number to the new phone and cancel the original line it might work.

If the juggle is possible at all, there should be a way to keep the number, too. The local number portability rules and processes are now fairly well-established; you could even park your number at a landline or pay-as-you-go account for a short while if a direct swap was disallowed.

Do you know if you'd lose access to the apps you'd purchased if you did that?

Not sure, and the path remains a untested hypothetical. If they're really trying to charge other 3G->3GS upgrades $400, there might be additional roadblocks thrown up.

I thought all purchased apps were linked to the ITunes account, rather than carrier account... so I would again expect there's a way to carry them forward, but I may be overly optimistic.

You are correct - apps are linked with your iTunes account, not your AT&T account. I was able to transfer paid apps from my iPod touch to my iPhone when I upgraded without a problem.

It's confirmed. Presumably 2G customers qualify for upgrades to the 3GS though.

edit: It is now confirmed that 2G users qualify for upgrades to the 3GS at the subsidized prices.

Yep; I just did it and was charged $299 for the new 32GB phone. (I have the first generation iPhone. I guess I should also note that I bought it the first day it was available back in '07, so my original 2 year contract is near expiring. Not sure what the case would be for someone who bought a phone in, say, Dec 07.)

The $299 is only half of the cost, you also get to pay an extra $360 over the 2 year contract in higher monthly fees compared to the original iPhone.

I think I'll hold on to my original and hope for a new carrier in 2010. The features are great, but AT&T's call handling is not acceptable, I don't need to extend that contract.

One More Thing...

Existing 3G Customers will have to pay $599 and $699 plus extend your contract 2 more years.

Yeah. Just checked my pricing at http://buyiphone.apple.com/ - $699 for a 32GB until July 12th, at which point I'm eligible for a "standard iPhone upgrade" - whatever that means.

Strange, I checked the same, and they offered me $499 for a 32GB, to upgrade from the 4GB 3G... I wonder if it has something to do with my buying the 3G after the price drop (for $199) or because I'm upgrading from the 4GB. Either way, they really need to get their act straight.

Still nowhere near as bad as Rogers' outrageous prices in Canada. $60/mo for 500MB of data? No thanks!

It's so sad that we can still say "at least it's not as bad as Canada!"

We're becoming an embarrassment, but at least people like Michael Geist are fighting:

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4037/125/

Well, I'd like to withhold judgment on how bad it is until we know what AT&T will charge for bandwidth now that tethering will be an option. I know as soon as I can get an iPhone that works on T-Mobile or Verizon I'm pretty much gone.

Yeah, Apple skipped through that part of the presentation REEEAAALLLY fast. Guess they don't want to be the ones to give the bad news.

Whatever it is, I doubt you'll be paying $50 for 2MB/mo.

Do you really go through >500mb/mo on your phone?

I've personally been in between the 500MB-1,000MB/mo range in the past year. I don't tether or anything, but do stream internet radio over it, and sometimes internet video's (e.g., TED).

If you're only using the basic built-in apps, like email, web, and maps, and you buy all Apps over your Cable/DSL line at home and install via iTunes, you'll probably not go above 500MB.

But once you throw multi-media into the mix, and buying apps over the wire, it's a different story. 500MB becomes quite tiny.

I fully agree on this point, I've been on the 500mb plan for over 6 months now and I never past 500mb. Sure now there's supposed to be tethering, but that's a hole different story.

Apple should make MobileMe the Apple mobile phone service and just front all of the wireless carriers around the world. That's what users really want in terms of one-stop shopping and service.

Except that the MobileMe/dotMac part of Apple is one of the only ones that has trouble executing cleanly. They are currently one of Apple's weak links.

Good point. Of course, they'd have the money to get some people in there with a clue. :-)

They already have that, so why hasn't it happened? There's some political blockage here.

That's great until the virtual carrier switches network and many customers can't get a signal anymore.

On whose network?

Everybody who wants a cut of the business -- that's the whole point.

Right now, the carriers have too much control and that doesn't serve the customers.

Think of it like iTunes for phones: There's lots of music companies but customers really just want access to music.

You live in the US don't you? In most of the world phone and subscription are not tied at all. If I want a phone, I go buy one. If I want a new plan, I go sign up for one. It's really that simple most places not the US. For reference, it's called a working market.

I'm already annoyed at Apple for tying the iPhone to iTunes. There's no need for them to tie in even more bullshit.

iTunes is the ecosystem Apple created for their ipods, did you really think apple would change its winning strategy?

Every carrier should have FindMyPhone!

I just tried to upgrade and I'm getting the originally announced pricing:

Review iPhone pricing.

As an existing customer, you qualify for the following iPhone pricing: You'll be able to choose the iPhone you want a little later in the process.

    * $99.00* — 8GB iPhone 3G (black)
    * $199.00* — 16GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)
    * $299.00* — 32GB iPhone 3G S (black or white)

AT&T

It depends how long you've had your previous iPhone (and which one you had). I believe you have to have had your previous phone for at least a year to qualify for the prices you listed.

I'm pretty sure it's cheaper to cancel your AT&T account (by paying the fee) and then starting fresh with them with a $200 iPhone 3GS then upgrading from a regular 3G.

...if you're okay with losing the phone number you already have.

If somebody was that desperate, they could probably transfer the number to a month-to-month plan and then back to preserve the number.

Yeah, I'm SICK of AT&T. For the first time I'm going to be buying an iPhone that actually will have less feature support than the U.S. carrier!

Curious, in Firefox 3.5b99 on OS X...

This works:

www.➡.ws/䡗

but this does not:

http://www.➡.ws/䡗

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