AT&T Data Plan Policy Change
As of Sep 6 2009, all PDA’s and Blackberries activated on the AT&T network will be required to have their respective unlimited data plans. These data plans, the PDA Personal Data and Blackberry Personal Data are $30 a month in addition to whatever talk plan and messaging plans are selected by the customer. Prior to this change it was possible for a PDA/Palm/Blackberry user to have the their phones activated without a data plan, using the offline functionality of the device and keeping the convenience of having a phone in the same device, or even having a “stand alone” package where users could use the data only without voice services, but no longer. Furthermore, after Oct 31 2009, AT&T customers with smartphone IMEI’s registered on their accounts will automatically have the appropriate data plan added to their accounts without the customers permission. These policy changes mirror the iPhones mandatory Data plan in both cost and requirements, removing some the flexibility and versatility of these devices.
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It was my understanding they were keeping grandfathered media plans and others will be required to be put on the proper plan but not forced?
I have an AT&T Go Phone prepaid account.. What happens if I remove the SIM card from my 4 year old Nokia GSM phone and put it into the Treo 750 ? Will it work as a phone ? I use the Treo 750 for field data collection. It will be convenient to have PDA and phone in one.
I completely disagree with this move by AT&T. I think it is rather bogus and implemented in a manner that is not consistent with how loyal customers should be treated. I did not receive any forewarning of this policy change and only realized it last week as I tried to “upgrade” couple of lines on my account. If I had known, I would have upgraded sooner (as I was eligible in July’09) and would have been grandfathered in. Very very unfair of them to do this.
ATT did grandfather the older packaged but they removed your multimedia text messaging services so you can send text messages but not picture messages. I called them to see why my palm was no longer able to send or receive picture messages and was told i’d need to purchase the extra data package to use this feature but if i downgraded to an ordinary phone it would work again.