NewsAT&T GoPhone Prepaid Adds Data-Only Option
Starting today, AT&T is now offering a prepaid plan that offers unlimited data, without any voice charges.
Previously, GoPhone Pay As You Go offered feature packs, which allowed for adding 1 MB or 5 MB of data for $4.99 and $9.99, respectively. When the data was used up, a customer could call back to 611 and re-add the data package. Unused data would roll over from month to month, provided the customer re-purchased the add-on.
Today, AT&T has added to that offering with a new package: Unlimited MEdia Net for Pay As You Go plans. For $19.99/month (same as Unlimited MEdia Net on other plans), customers can use MEdia Net service without paying any monthly airtime charge. All a customer has to do, is call 611 at the start of every month to have the automated system re-add the Feature Pack to the account.
This game-changing move affects a broad range of devices. Savvy users can now, with minor changes, use any unlocked GSM or UMTS phone, smartphone, PDA, or aircard as a data device… without paying any monthly voice fee.
Frequent readers of PhoneNews.com will note that we covered a loophole in AT&T’s GoPhone Pick Your Plan offering that enabled customers to cash out unused airtime balances. However, this new offering eliminates the need for that.
This new offering may also pave the way for Apple iPhone users to finally use the device as a data-only smartphone. Currently, customers that wish to use iPhone as a data-only device must sign up for the $50/month GoPhone plan, and use our cash out loophole to get their airtime balance back.
In addition, existing GoPhone Pick Your Plan customers can switch to Pay As You Go service and also benefit from the new offering. Simply call AT&T Customer Service to switch your account over
Thanks to reader Gordon H for sending this news tip in…
Dashboard Widget
Does one have to call in to begin service with this feature? It isn’t listed yet on the website, though I don’t think I’m looking hard enough.
Is having att for data a good idea, there highspeed isn’t to great by talk on most boards
Yes, just call customer service either from your phone (611) or another phone and request the Unlimited MediaNet for $19.99.
When you call 611, ask for Buy Features. Then, you’ll be transferred to the AT&T GoPhone “Mall”.
From there it’s pretty straightforward. You say MEdia Net when prompted, and then it asks if you want 1 MB, 5 MB, or Unlimited. You say Unlimited, confirm, and it’s on your account for the next 30 days.
30 days from now, you call back, and add it back on again.
Now, as to the price (the “deal”)… if you’re in a UMTS coverage area, it’s the best deal in the county. Per-kilobit, $20/month for HSPA connectivity is probably the best data price in the world right now.
EV-DO starts at $30 with Sprint SERO, and that doesn’t allow you to use mobile broadband cards (this does).
You won’t find anyone offering $20/month for mobile broadband card access. Regional carriers aren’t even at $40 for that.
Granted, if you are in an EDGE area, this rate is a bit more tepid of an offer… assuming you can get EV-DO. Still, $20/month flat for unlimited data is a great price, even on EDGE.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have to quote the price for a HSPA card and router for my car. An extra $20/month is well worth it to turn my car into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. This works well for AT&T too, since I’ll also be paying $20/month on my iPhone for data… so they’ll actually rake in $40/month instead of $20.
[...] latest one to give prepaid customers more. The Pay As You Go side of their offering has a new deal: Unlimited MEdia Net. Yes, that means subscribers on the Pay As You Go plan can have the same offering as those on the [...]
[...] latest one to give prepaid customers more. The Pay As You Go side of their offering has a new deal: Unlimited MEdia Net. Yes, that means subscribers on the Pay As You Go plan can have the same offering as those on the [...]
Since I live in a flagship market (Dallas/Fort Worth) I get full HSPA access. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the online resellers to pick up an HSPA PC Card and an internal miniPCI card for my new laptop (assuming I can even find one locally).
This is awesome. Hopefully nothing will change…
can someone def confirm that this works with the iphone, and is there any special way we would have to go about activating it.
It does work on iPhone, but you just jailbreak your iPhone. iTunes doesn’t support activating iPhone on Pay As You Go plans, so you have to activate the iPhone using a free jailbreak tool.
iJailbreak on Mac, and ZiPhone on a PC, both can do this very easily.
If I have the “10c min $1 a day ” plan and use only the data network will I still be charged $1 a day ?
Or will I be charged only if I make voice calls ?
I called two AT&T customer service reps. Both said the prepaid unlimited data plan will not work with PC modems or with phones connected as a modem. Perhaps there are hacks or ways to configure phones for data use, but, apparently, it’s not officially supported or sanction.
It’s painless to enable aircards, you just change isp.cingular to wap.cingular in the APN setting. Of course AT&T doesn’t support this on their cards, but their Any Device initiative does say that they will support it on any unlocked GSM/UMTS device.
As to the $1/day plan, it’s not clear if data usage invokes the daily fee. It is believed that only voice calls do, however we do not have independent confirmation of this.
Alan Reiter: “but, apparently, it’s not officially supported or sanction”. Really? Is it “apparent” that a company that has a $60/mo plan w/ a 2yr commitment would not support the same device at 1/3 the rate w/ no contract? Because *I* thought for sure that the reps on the phone welcome us w/ open arms when we asked for help to cheat the established systems… >:-( Duuuur….
Chris Price: I have been trying for 2 days to get this to work, and i can’t do it. I set a manual dial up connection and set my air card as the modem. Tried using *99***1# and *99# but I cannot get it to work. I can get it to connect, but it boots me w/ error 619, which I believe is the authentication error. Which software program are you using when you talk about swithing the APN? Are you talking about the communication manager software? And if so, which version? In the manual dial up connection, I used both WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM AND ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM as the username.
I would suggest posting in the forums, as comments aren’t a good way of doing tech support. I will say that MEdia Net only uses WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM, you won’t get anywhere with ISP@CINGULARGPRS.COM.
Hey all,
I just wanted to confirm that this DOES work with the iPhone. I just did it this weekend! (just letting you know I was able to activate my phone through iTunes in January through the Pick Your Plan go-phone service, and I switched to Pay as You Go this weekend.) I am very excited as this is a very good deal, and it is perfectly legit. No need for jailbreaking or hacking or modifying your iphone. Here’s the deal:
1. It’s $20/month for unlimited medianet.
).
2. You must have ‘unexpired airtime’ balance on your phone in order to use the unlimited medianet.
3. Cards must be purchased for a minute of $15 (IF YOU WANT TO EXTEND YOUR EXPIRATION DATE). A $15 refill will extend your expiration date 30 days, a $25-$75 refill will extend it 90 days, and a $100 refill will extend it 365 days (and will also get you $5 extra dollars bnous, $10 for the next $100 refill, $15 for the next, $15 for the next, and then $20 for here on out).
4. If you are trying to use your iPhone as a “data-only” phone, this is the best way to go about doing it Buy your refill cards in $100 increments. Do not use your iPhone to make calls, and do not text (this will take away from your balance. You have the option of doing this, but it isn’t wise) Then every month use $20 of that $100 balance to pay for the unlimited medianet “feature” that was explained above in the article. This way you have enough to cover you for a few months and never have to worry about these minutes expiring, and you can take advantage of the extra bonuses (which can be used for texting and such
5. If you MUST use your minutes: A few things to note:
a. There is a daily charge of $1.00/day to start using your voice plan. After that it is 10 cents a minute (or free if you are calling someone else who has AT&T, so if your family, best friends, parents, spouse/gf/bf has AT&T it might be worth the $1.00/day).
b. There is NO daily charge to use the data plan (ie: email, internet, etc.)
c. There is NO daily charge to use text messages (although it will cost you 15 cents per text (to send or receive)
d. Therefore, as long as you don’t use your voice plan, you should be fine when it comes to that annoying daily charge.
e. Even though AT&T offers two Pay as you Go Gophone plans ($0.10 per minute with the $1 dollar daily charge and $0.25/minute NO daily charge), you cannot have the unlimited medianet unless you get the $0.10 per minute plan. I don’t know why but that’s the way it is. If you aren’t using the phone to make calls it shouldn’t matter for you anyway.
6. Annoyances: There are two major annoyance when it comes to doing this with your iPhone.
1. You will not have access to visual voicemail (THERE IS NO WAY AROUND THIS AS OF YET). If you aren’t using the voiceplan though it shouldn’t matter for you.
2. Every so often (about every 15 minutes-30 minutes) I get an alert on the iphone that says “The last transaction cost 0.00 USD. Your account balance is ($XX.XX) USD.” You have to press the dismiss button for every time this comes up (so when I wake up in the morning I have to press dismiss about 25 times, but it takes about 10 seconds).
Otherwise, everything is PERFECT. Thanks AT&T!
Thanks for the information here. $20/month unlimited EDGE is perfect for my iphone as I am still on the last leg of my Verizon 2yr contract.
Here’s what I did: I walked into an AT&T store and asked to buy a GoPhone SIM card with the $1 per day 10c/min Pay As You Go plan. Told the guy I got a cheapo phone off ebay and needed the SIM only. Paid $25 as refill and the SIM was free. Got home, popped the new SIM in, called 611 and followed the voice prompts to the “Mall” as said above. It worked and the next day I got another $10 bonus on my account (perhaps there’s a buy $25 get $10 promotion going on now). Not a bad deal.
Agreed that the “The last transaction cost 0.00 USD” is pretty annoying. Anyone has a walk-around?
There’s no workaround to the “last transaction” message. There’s no way to turn it off on the device, or on your account.
The only way to make it go away, is to upgrade to a GoPhone Pick Your Plan or standard account. Since iPhone is supported on GoPhone PYP, they removed that message on those accounts.