guy at the store told me if i had a smart phone it would be 30 but for a normal phone only 10. Both are unlimited but i dont understand why? My younger sister can eat up more data on her motorola but i pay 3x more because my phone has a few more features?has anybody added the cheaper data plan to their smart phone?btw im not tethering or anything crazy just email, lil face book and agps.

5/26/2009 4:05:03 PM

just pay for it. they can tell what kind of phone you're using and force you to pay it if they really want to

5/26/2009 4:11:47 PM

Your younger sister can't eat up nearly data you do on your smartphone.

And no, there's no way around it.

5/26/2009 4:23:14 PM

^^, ^.

for a while, i was using my 8525 (and then my treo 750) with the unlimited medianet plan (the $10 one) but they eventually caught on - your ESN is a dead giveaway.

if you have an iphone, you're even more out of luck - if you have any other data plan besides the special iphone plan and it sees that your ESN belongs to an iphone, your plan gets changed automatically.

5/26/2009 5:24:05 PM

$10 for unlimited phone
$30 for unlimited smartphone
$50-$60 for 5GB cap on aircard (most plans, few exceptions).

It's based on expected / average data usage per user. And yes, if you try to tether or utilize without the appropriate plan, they WILL eventually catch on no matter how clever you think you are. (Case in point, by default all ATT connections on smartphones will send you through a Cingular proxy with default settings. Not hard to determine OS from there and then figure out "wrong plan / customer trying to cheat").

Yes, the plans suck right now. There was a good Slashdot discussion a few weeks back. Basically highlighted the "unlimited for $X/month" approach for ISPs is extremely profitable. Switching to a metered usage would likely not be in their favor, as the number of light users vs. heavy users would be disproportionate and would likely be less profitable in the short-term. Hence why the unlimited approach is the current business model. Per usual Slashot, few facts to back this up, but, interesting discussion nonetheless.

[Edited on May 26, 2009 at 5:50 PM. Reason : .]

5/26/2009 5:49:12 PM

I'm using an unlocked T-mobile G1 on AT&T's network with the $10 unlimited data plans and I have no problems.

5/26/2009 6:43:06 PM

for heavy internet i use wifi. my log says in the past 30days i've sent 2mb and received 18mb and that includes data tranfers through wifi. does anybody know about the threshold where they flag the phone as a smart phone?

5/26/2009 10:54:05 PM

If the data plans for providers were cheaper, I'd have a smart phone already. I think its ridiculous that internet for my cell phone costs as much, if not more than, the "lite" service most wired ISPs offer. Maybe its just me though...

5/26/2009 11:13:27 PM