Paying for a PDA/Smartphone for AT&T, is the data plan needed?

Question

I'm wanting to buy an AT&T Tilt or Pantech Duo, but I'm not really up to paying 30$+ for the data plans. Is it possible to buy the phone and have it under my current plan without paying for the data plan? And if I do, would I still be able to text under my unlimited texting plan?

Answer 1

its like this. Say this dealer has a $25,000 car you want. You only want to pay $20,000. He tells you the only way you can pay $20,000 for it, is if you sign an agreement saying that you will only buy $100 gas every week for two years from them. Without this agreement, he will not sell you the car at $20,000.

so you have two options. You can pay $25,000 for the car and buy gas from whomever you want, or leave it in your garage to rust, or pay $5000 less, and then only buy gas from this company.

This is what buying a subsidized phone is. This carrier, is taking money off the cost of the phone when you sign a contract agreeing to their terms. If they tell you a data plan is required, then a data plan is required.

So, dont buy a carrier phone, and you can put it on whatever you want to do. check ebay or craigslist for a tilt or duo.

Answer 2

On the DL, you can tell AT&T you have a different phone then you are actually using. Or don't tell them at all just switch sim cards. Just make sure you have an IMEI #. As long as you are using the same data they won't tell. For example Tilt has 3g so give them a phone with a cheaper plan that uses 3g such as Samsung Sync.