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…
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.
Hi Chris,
Could you give me some more details on how to do this with the New iPhone??
You just put a GoPhone SIM into iPhone 3G. There aren’t any special tricks to it.
I don’t even have a att account yet(or new iphone) is it possible to use a go phone sim on a newly acctivated 3g Iphon
before my 30 day trial expires. My concern is being stuck under contract or having to pay the etf if I
cant use it on a pay as you go plan!
The way att makes it seem as though you CANT make it work!
So any tips for a smooth transition??
HSPA PC Card and an internal miniPCI card ?
I live in NYC. What do I have to get to use my PC and laptop to access the unlimited prepaid data plan?
Is the one thing I can get to connect to my wireless router for all the devices in my home?
Will the unlimited prepaid data work in Israel?
Can I upgrade my Blackjack II data only contract to an iphone 3G. I have it less than 30 days. Will they make me add a voice plan? Will they charge me full price?
My Blackjack II works with my gophone Sim card except for videos, Either way it shifts between edge and 3g. Will it work with Iphone 3G?
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This is working for me using a locked AT&T Option GT MAX 3.6 Express card and a Gophone SIM with Unlimited MediaNET added. I’ve had the Gophone account for several months as a “backup” since I only have my cell phone. I used to tether my BlackBerry on Verizon, but I’ve now switched to an iPhone 3G which doesn’t offer a tethering option (without jailbreak/hassle) so this is great for when I’m out of range of Wifi. I did have to change the settings to use wap.cingular.
I also dropped the Gophone SIM in my AT&T iPhone 3G and it worked flawlessly with nothing else required. Note, the phone was already activated (I have a contract on that line including enterprise data plan) but dropping the SIM in and it just worked. Every once in a while it would pop up a message showing the amount of the last transaction ($0.00) and the balance remaining.
Can you in sert the prepaid sim and it work on an iphone 2g without unlocking?
So can I purchase any gophone for this?????????????
I saw that the AT&T Option GT MAX 3.6 Express card works so im probably going to pick that up.
So then i just take the cd that come with the option max and download it then put the sim card in the data card and change isp.cingular to wap.cingular and it will work?????
For the first-generation iPhone, you need to use PwnageTool on your iPhone, with the GoPhone SIM inserted. This is not needed for the iPhone 3G.
Once running PwnageTool, a first-generation iPhone will accept any AT&T SIM, just like iPhone 3G does.
[…] Phone News – at&t adds $20/mo. Data Only plan to prepaid plans […]
I have a Laptop connect Card ( Sierra Wireless Aircard 875) from AT&T can I use a prepaid sim card from any phone and just add the unlimited media net to use on my laptop computer?
[…] organization to break the news on an unlimited prepaid data offering thanks to our savvy readership in May, and combined with our promotion in the Sony Ericsson Z750, made the idea of cheap 3G data access […]
If you’re looking for a in car wifi HSDPA router then this probably is going to be your best bet:
http://www.highgainantennas.com/Outdoor_2Tx2Rx_MiMO_2_4GHz_Access_Point_Repeater_p/3nr.htm
I use one and it works pretty good.
Sorry, this one:
http://www.highgainantennas.com/Outdoor_UMTS_GSM_Wireless_MiMO_Router_p/3gn.htm
The other one is MiMO signal repeater for the main AP.
Dear friends, I bought the GoPhone sim with 29.99 plan, activated the unlimited data option, but it doesn’t work in my unlocked 3g iphone. Safari says NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. Calls and SMS are ok. Is it an APN isue? TNX V
Hey i got a question if i purchase a gophone sim card like with the pay as you go plan will the internet work on it. If not is there anyway to use internet on a pay as you go phone.
I don’t want to buy the pick your plan.
Just want the pay as you go plan.
Hello if i get the 9.99 internet with my unlocked g1 can i use my market,youtube,and etc..?
Im very curios, know that ATT has dropped the 19.99 Mo Unlimited Net or Data, to 5GB for 9.99, Im wondering, if I purchase a sierra USB air card and activate a pre-paid sim and pop it in there, will it work, I did my research and it turns that 5GB its quite enough for what I use my lap top for in a monthly basis, and if will it work, from what I have read, I might have to change the settings in the air card, but will the speed be the same as with a contract, or in a 3G network? or is there any web page that guides me to do it? or that shows me how? I will really apreciatte if someone helps me in this matter, thank you!
AT&T is offering 5 MB for $9.99, not 5 GB.
I didn’t go for the IPhone, but got the cheapest gophone and an unlocked PALM TREO 750 for $100 and I thought I was set. Then AT&T cancelled the $20/month unlimited data and I am stuck with 9.99 for 5mb.
Also, I couldn’t get Sierra 860 air-card working with SIM. Luckily I was able to return it.
What are my best options now?
The Verizon Impulse data for $1/day when you use it doesn’t sound bad, but I don’t think they use SIM card? Also, the Palm is not EVDO? How would I use unlocked PALM TREO 750 with them?
What are my best options for 3G data in NYC?
I placed my gophone SIM card in the SIERRA WIRELESS AIRCARD 881 and tried to connect to AT&T.
I get the following error message from 3G watcher;
“Disconnected from AT&T Invalid Profile”
Any Suggestions?
P.S: I downloaded the latest software/firmware from Sierra.
no one can purchase unlimited media net any more.
wait so the unlimited media net plan for $29.99/month is no longer available? is this true? also i was wondering if i can use this on an unlcoked phone such as the Nokia E71
sorry about my last post i meant $19.99/month
Yes, it was removed in November, search the news for details.
The 100 MB Media Net plan is being offered as a gesture to those that want more data than what GoPhone offers currently, but it is a far cry from the unlimited plan that was offered last fall.
100MB is not really enough for a PC. i thought it would be.
for someone with bad credit anyway to get a good amount amount of data anyware without a credit card or ssn, basicly prepaid since my credit is distroyed
I spoke with a sales rep today. They apparently think the data plan is still available, its just not sold in stores. Buy a phone, (a really cheap one) and try it out. I bet you can still buy the plan. I’m pretty broke right now, so if anyone wants to test it out, they were ready to turn it on for my SIM at the AT&T site just a few minutes ago, but I backed out because “I needed to compare rates”.
Does the payg plan wor with an iPhone updated with latest software, 2.1?
I don’t want to hijack this post and I don’t think that it is but I am sorry if it is. I have an ATT Air Card data plan, but I don’t feel I can use all of the time, so I was wondering if it can be used in another device such as an IPhone or some similar so I can use the data minutes. I don’t care about the voice features. I don’t think this is cheating ATT I just want MY monies worth.