[CBoldman]

Hi guys,

I am posting this question for a friend. He is a college student who is currently under a family plan with AT&T. He recently purchased a used iPhone and would like to get it setup with AT&T. The only problem is that his family does not want to interrupt the current family plan that they have in place. He is willing to go without the data plan and essentially use the iPhone's data features under wifi only, be he of course would like to use the iPhone as his new cell phone.

Can anyone offer any suggestions? I remember hearing how it was possible to to not pay the $20 data fee each month. How should my friend go about setting up his phone? Thanks,

[Visnaut]

Your friend can just swap SIM cards with his existing phone, and then use a simple point-and-click utility like Independence or ZiPhone to activate the phone.

Note, he does not need to unlock it, and jailbreaking it is optional. Activating it with one of those utilities is the only step required, as it circumvents the need for iTunes to activate the phone with AT&T's servers.

After that, he should be able to use it as his cellphone, and use it with iTunes as you normally would. The only caveat is that he must repeat the process every time he updates to the latest firmware, which isn't advisable until he confirms that the aforementioned utilities have been updated to properly activate the latest firmware.

[Nodnarb]

Why can't he just add the phone to the existing plan? Like to add a line, it's $10/month, and to add an iPhone, it's $30/month. If he is already an "extra line" on the plan, all you have to do is give ATT $20/month more to cover the data. Right?

[TravisReynolds]

my uncle unlocked his.. he did the same thing

[Krusty]

Originally Posted by Nodnarb 

Why can't he just add the phone to the existing plan? Like to add a line, it's $10/month, and to add an iPhone, it's $30/month. If he is already an "extra line" on the plan, all you have to do is give ATT $20/month more to cover the data. Right?

Pretty much yes. When I first got the iPhone, its integration into a "mixed" ATT family plan sucked and the support people had no clue what was going on... it really was mixed only for minutes and everything else was separate (read, you basically paid in full, separately for the iPhone stuff .. so why even have it on the Family plan). Now, ATT has the stuff straightened out but what I've found is that you pretty much need to go to a Brick and Mortar ATT store to get it set up initially as I've never seen a good way to do it on line. Basically, now you can add an iPhone and share both the minutes and tap in to the Family Talk unlimited messaging ($30 for unlimited for all phones on the family plan .. including the iPhone). Then, you basically choose the lowest data plan for the iPhone (the $20 with unlimited data and 200 messages) but you will still be covered under the unlimited messaging for Family Talk.

So, in short, yes you can set up the iPhone into a Family plan without screwing up anything for the rest of the Family Plan. You only have to pay the $20 JUST ON THE iPhone if you want Edge data available to it.

[tintin220]

Sorry to bump, but I have a similar related question.

If I were to add an iPhone to an existing family plan but do NOT want EDGE data, can I do this like any other phone for just an additional $10/line? I know that for a while now, AT&T has enabled a feature wherein iPhone users can opt out and unsubscribe to unlimited data, which is something I'd rather not pay for when Wifi will suffice. However, will AT&T allow this?

Thanks.