A way to use prepaid data on an iPhone

AT&T had the king of prepaid data plans. For the same $20 monthly fee it charted postpaid users, AT&T allowed prepaid users to hook up a smartphone and pay by the month. Not long after the iPhone’s release they discontinued it and came back with far less attractive plans: $19.99 for 100MB and $4.99 for 1MB. Still, for someone who wanted a quick data bundle it was serviceable. But then AT&T made it policy to not allow iPhones on prepaid. Thankfully, there is a way around this. I actually found this topic on accident when reading a mailbag by Nicole Lee of CNET. She was asked about iPhone prepaid data, and she gave what I thought was an incomplete, if not inappropriate, answer.

Since you are using an iPhone 4, you would have to go with AT&T if you want to use the 3G data. AT&T offers a $100 card with an expiration period of 365 days, so you have a full year to use up that $100 if you like. Though the data package isn’t the best — it’s $4.99 for 1MB or $19.99 for 100MB — at least there’s the option for prepaid data, which is rare.

This isn’t exactly true. If you call AT&T customer service — and I did so three times yesterday — they will stonewall you on the iPhone prepaid issue. Again, their policy is to not allow it. Maybe you can sweet talk a dealer into setting it up, but I’m not so sure of that. Thankfully, there is a way you can get your iPhone with GoPhone. GigaOm’s The Apple Blog explained this back in July, after the release of the iPhone 4. It involves a six-step process, so it’s not exactly straight forward. But if you want to use your iPhone on prepaid it seems like the easiest method. ]]>