I’ve been a Bell South\Cingular\AT&T customer all my cell phone life. I just love the GSM phone opitons. I currently have an iPhone 1.0 and love it. I find that the $60 a month plan is reasonable for the minutes and data plan. However, I was sad to say goodbye to the AT&T discount offered to me via my employer. It was a solid discount that I was willing to forgo for the “privilege” of being an iPhone user.
With the announcement of the new iPhone 3G comes news that the plans will be swizzled as well. Gone are the days of the prepackaged iPhone plans. Now you choose your own voice plan at the standard AT&T rates it seems. Afterwords you can add standard unlimited data plans. The 3G plan will be $30 in addition to the base $40 voice plan. I’m quietly praying that standard AT&T plans might mean that I could hook my employer discount back up. The net result would actually be an iPhone 3G with unlimited data for slightly less than I’m paying for the same minutes and an EDGE unlimited data plan now.
It’s probably pie in the sky, but they’re telling me there is a chance! I’m willing to hold out and pray that this perfect storm might just come together. All that said, still no telling if I’ll bite the bullet and go new phone or not. I’m certainly tempted. More storage, 3G, longer battery, GPS, and the promise of potentially better phone audio has me sweating it out til July 11th.
UPDATE:
Just saw a post on Engadget with an AT&T Interview which stated:
Will FAN (corporate) discounts apply?
Another “We haven’t discussed this yet” for this one. Since the iPhone will continue to have its own set of plans, it’s entirely possible AT&T could make them ineligible for discounting. The counterargument, though, is that the iPhone is now being offered like any other phone — deeply subsidized by the carrier, that is — and details of the device’s service should fall in line with that as well. We’ll see.
I don’t have any insider knowledge or anything, but I fully expect that your employee discount would apply to the new plans. AT&T seems to be treating the iPhone 3G as if it were any phone at all, no more special arrangements like there were for the 1st generation phone. I think your stars may be aligned. (had to throw in another chance metaphor)
I heard they (plans) are going to be $10 more expensive. I’ll try to dig up the deets for you.
Also, for the iPhone itself, like the later “cheaper” iPods, no dock will be included.
I’m waiting to be impressed.
I definitely heard that the “normally” available plans will be more (10 bucks more a month for 3g data than 2g), but I was hoping that maybe they would allow me to qualify for employee discounts like AT&T does for other phones. They locked original users of the iPhone out of these plans and discounts.