iPhone 3G - SMS Text Messages No Longer Bundled
June 10th, 2008 (5:58am) Judi Sohn 15 Comments
Are you thinking of getting a new iPhone 3G next month? Do you like to send/receive text messages? If you’re thinking of lining up on July 11, you’ve already budgeted the $30/month for the data plan. But did you know that you should also select a separate messaging plan?
From Om Malik’s interview with Ralph de la Vega, President & Chief Executive Officer of AT&T Mobility (emphasis mine):
OM: Has there been a change in the cost of data plans?
RDLV: The data plans are different on the 3G iPhone versus the 2G iPhone. Consumers will pay $30 a month every month, while enterprises will pay $45 a month. This is what you pay us on other PDA devices such as Blackberry Curve. The SMS messages are not bundled anymore, and you pay for what you want. Again the prices are based on what you buy.
What he neglects to mention is that the $45 PDA plan for BlackBerry is also available to consumers (it’s the plan I have on my BlackBerry 8800) and that it includes 1500 text messages.
How much more will this set you back? AT&T will charge you $0.20 per message sent and received if you don’t have a plan that includes messages. It adds up quickly. No warning until the bill comes. No way of returning unwanted messages to sender. Plans start at $5 per month for 200 messages, going to $20 per month for unlimited messages. That’s on top of the data and voice plan.
The old iPhone rate plan was $20 per month and included 200 messages.
15 Comments Post your own comment
Phillip says: June 10th, 2008 6:17am
Heh. Well that takes some of the bloom off that rose. And it’s making me think I LIKE my iPhone and the 2.0 updates will do just fine, thank you :)
Mike says: June 10th, 2008 6:58am
I have to second that. I was thinking of upgrading but giving me less for more just isn’t worth it. This is how AT&T makes up for not sharing the iPhone revenue anymore. I can understanding charging the same data rate as for other PDAs but no SMS included it just too much.
djacobs says: June 10th, 2008 7:49am
Ok, now this sucks. Might as well keep my Blackjack I.
Emily Williams says: June 10th, 2008 10:32am
Guess that’s to make up for the new low price! I don’t like that they’re basically forcing you into buying a plan by charging so much for received messages…considering how much money most iPhone users will already spend relative to other customers, it just seems cheap on AT&T’s part.
Goodman says: June 10th, 2008 11:08am
It’s a bummer, but it just puts the iPhone monthly charges on a level playing field with every other 3G smartphone AT&T offers. They’re subsidizing the phone now, and they’ve got to get their money back somehow. Plans are $5 for 200 messages, $15 for 1500 messages (which works out to the exact same cost as the Blackberry), and $20 for unlimited messages. I can see how existing iPhone owners would be disappointed, but I think a lot of people will be happy that they’ll have to pay less upfront now to buy an iPhone.
The Good, Bad, and Ugly sides of the iPhone 3G | Techie Diva says: June 11th, 2008 1:04am
[...] for a data plan that used to cost $20/mo ($45/mo for business users), they’ll also have to pay an extra $5-$20 more per month for SMS because they’re not bundled anymore, and those who want MobileMe will pay $99 a year [...]
Peter says: June 11th, 2008 6:26am
OK by me, I hardly ever use SMS. If you’re somewhere you can’t talk and the other person has an email equipped phone too, why not just use email?
Damien says: June 11th, 2008 11:59pm
The thing that really bothers me is you are getting charged the same price for the texting plan as all other users and yet the iPhone is one of the few phones that does not have MMS. I can almost understand charging something more considering you could be sending video, audio, or pictures with MMS, but when the iphone can only send straight texts should it really be an extra charge? Really though I can’t understand how they can still charge extra for SMS/MMS at all. If you have unlimited data, what really is a text other than data.
Kenneth says: June 14th, 2008 9:26pm
At&t has two different PDA/Blackberry plans. One is Consumer for $30 and the other is Enterprise for $45. If you have the consumer data plan and 1500 text messages it does indeed cost $45, but that doesn’t make it the Enterprise data plan. The Enterprise data plan includes only data, including the ability to connect to an Exchange server (or Blackberry Enterprise Server). It’s true that there are a few others, but essentially they are the cost of the data plan plus the cost of the SMS/MMS package bundled together.
Also to Damien, the SMS messages are sent through the voice side of the network. Even if you have no internet plan, you can still send SMS messages. Not that it still couldn’t be free, but it is different from email or webpages.
Mike Gunderloy says: June 15th, 2008 3:47am
Kenneth, I spent a bit of time digging into this the past few days, and as far as I can tell, AT&T and Apple have yet to make a definitive statement about whether there are going to be feature differences between the personal and business data plans *for the iPhone*. If you’ve found a solid list, let us know - it seems reasonable to assume that the plans will be in line with the existing Blackberry/PDA plans, but that’s as yet unconfirmed.
chi says: June 21st, 2008 1:19pm
WOW. Apple keynote presentation made the iphone sound so cheap. trying to trick poor consumers into spending more. too bad for apple, all this hype and interest might just work against them. I never read blogs or news about a product, well not until now. I’m actually slowly being talked out of buying the phone. The only way i would buy the phone is if they gave me the option to buy the edge plan over the 3g. Or at lease have the original iphone for sale still. I think I’m going wait things out, I dont think this phone will do as well as everyone thinks.
Web Worker Daily » Archive iPhone 3G: $199 - and up « says: July 1st, 2008 11:01am
[...] And remember, “unlimited” doesn’t mean “unlimited everything” - as we pointed out before, text messaging is extra, from $5 to $20 per month. As Macsimum News reminds us, though, you can [...]
Web Worker Daily » Archive Text Messaging: Who Cares? « says: July 8th, 2008 2:00pm
[...] numbers suggest that the extra charge for text messaging on the iPhone 3G might not matter all that much. Annoyingly, the original survey doesn’t seem to be available [...]
Jake says: July 8th, 2008 3:10pm
Damn, this is getting frustrating! I went into getting a 3G iPhone about a month ago totally stoked, but the more costs have piled up the, the more I’ve tried to figure out how I’m going to squeeze a $100 phone bill in! With that, I still don’t get a lot of minutes!
I guess I’ll just live with it. I keep rationalizing that the stimulus check gave me an extra $600 to throw around, so that should cover a phone and about 4 phone bills!
Jake
NoteScribe: Premier Note Software
The Viddler Spotlight » Mahalo iPhone Blues says: July 14th, 2008 8:44am
[...] musical complaints include the two year required contract, additional texting plan required, the MobileMe costs, and the fact that the 3G network isn’t available in her area. (I [...]