AT&T GoPhone
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GoPhone is the trademark for AT&T Mobility's pay-as-you-go (PAYG) service. The GoPhone trademark was acquired by Cingular in its merger with AT&T Wireless. Unlike many other PAYG services when GoPhone was acquired by Cingular they began to offer two options; the first is a conventional card-based PAYG service, for which the customer purchases a reload card with a preloaded dollar amount, which is then deducted from an account based on usage. The second, called Pick Your Plan (PYP), is prepaid, but has features which are more similar to conventional post-paid calling plans and is automatically billed every month. This variation was added on by Cingular. PYP includes Cingular's Rollover Balance which allows customers to preserve unused account balance for up to a full year (vs. 3-6 months for other carriers' prepaid services; T-mobile To Go is an exception, giving a one year expiration for any recharge once $100 has been purchased in the life of the account, under the name Gold Rewards). Payments for both the PYP and PAYG are handled by Vesta, a payment processor for many cell phone companies and MVNOs
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[edit] AT&T GoPhone Pick Your Plan
In mid 2006 Cingular decided to offer its popular MEdia Net plans on Cingulars PYP GoPhone service. Using PYP requires automatic payment with either a credit/debit card, or ACH from a checking account. If the payment fails, the customer must call and make payment within 4 days, or they lose their "roll-over" minutes.
Since the consolidation of Cingular and AT&T Inc, the company has begun offering prepaid data options on Pay As You Go. Data rates run from $4.99 for 1 MB of data, to 5 MB for $9.99, up to unlimited data usage for $19.99 per month. These so-called Feature Packs, can be added to a user's account monthly by calling 611. The data plans do not renew automatically.
[edit] AT&T GoPhone Pay As You Go
Unlike AT&T GoPhone Pick Your Plan which has a monthly fee, their Pay As You Go plan allows you to refill your airtime at your own leisure by purchasing prepaid cards, or one of several airtime packages available through their refill site.
AT&T offers their Pay As You Go GoPhones in two plans: Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk, and Pay As You Go 25¢ per minute.
- Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk
- $1 fee only on days that you use your phone, then 10¢ per minute
- Unlimited Mobile to Mobile if talking to another AT&T mobile phone user
- Pay As You Go 25¢ Per Minute
- 25¢ per minute flat rate
[edit] AT&T GoPhones
- Any AT&T, Cingular or Unlocked GSM handset supporting the 850 MHz band.
As GoPhone accounts are not authorized to roam on the 1900 MHz T-Mobile GSM network, handsets lacking the 850 MHz band will perform poorly if they get a signal at all. This limitation applies to many tri-band European handsets that only support the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz GSM bands.
[edit] Things You Should Know
Some important things you should know when choosing Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk or Pay As You Go 25₡ per Minute plans:
Turning off Text/Data Messaging on a GoPhone:
- As with any "pay as you go" type cell phone service, text/data messaging may incur unintentional charges especially from spammers and wrong number dialers. AT&T charges a minimum of $0.15 for every data message received on a GoPhone whether you open the message or not. This includes messages sent to you by error (i.e., wrong number) as well as spammers. If it gets out of hand, you can request that they shut off messaging (text, media, or both) by dialing 611 on your GoPhone and speaking with a customer service representative. However, if you do this you will not be able to send text or media messages either.
General Considerations:
- Minutes are rounded to the nearest minute. A call of 1 minute and 30 seconds in length will be rounded to 2 minutes; a call of 1 minute and 29 seconds in length will be rounded to 1 minute.
- Calls under 30 seconds are rounded to 30 seconds. You will not be charged for a full minute, however they DO charge you the 1$ daily fee for using your phone if you are a Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk customer, even if you used your phone for only 2 seconds of air time the whole day (for example, if you called someone and they didn't pick up).
- You can buy extra minutes by visiting their refill site: www.myprepaidrefill.com
- Airtime/Minutes can only be bought in one of several packages ($15, 25, 50, 75, or 100)
- The $1 fee for Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk is also drawn from these Airtime Packages.
- If you have Pay As You Go Unlimited Talk, you are allowed unlimited mobile to mobile minutes. However, you will still be charged the $1 fee for using your phone on that given day.
- Each package has an expiration time: 30 days for the $15 package, 90 days for the $25, $50, and $75 packages, and 365 days for the $100 package
- Your air time expiration date is set to the amount of time alloted for the most recent airtime package that you purchased (in other words, if you have 5 days until your airtime expires and you purchase a 25$ package, the expiration date will be reset to 90 days)
- Pay As You Go refill cards cannot be applied to Pick Your Plan accounts; Pick Your Plan accounts can only be refilled over the phone system or website using credit card or ACH.
Important Note: If you do not refill your account for 60 days after your last airtime expires, then your account will be deactivated and your phone number lost. You will then need to pay a fee to reactivate your account, or purchase a new GoPhone.
[edit] Ordering Problems
ATT Wireless frequently rejects online GoPhone orders stating that the individuals credit history could not be verified, even though it is a prepaid service that does not require a credit history check.
[edit] See also
Other prepaid wireless service providers
