Must I sign a contract if I bring my own phone?

[carpenoctem07]

Hi, I'm confused as I'm reading conflicting information. I am not an ATT customer as of this moment. I was wondering if I bought a used ATT phone, would I still be required to sign a contract and have to pay an ETF if I choose to cancel that contract before 2 years? I've tried cell phone contracts and I don't like them, I just left Verizon because of this. But prepaid phones, well they suck! I'm a student and even though I can afford a high cell phone bill now, there's no guarantee of this in the future. I'd like the freedom of leaving my service at any time that I feel the need to without worrying about an outrageous fee. So is this possible? Or does ATT make you sign up for a contract regardless of whether you take advantage of 2-year contract pricing? Thanks!

[belome]

Just out of curiousity, won't Verizon let you do that?

[Virtual]

Yes, it's possible. By bringing your own phone they will offer you a month-to-month service without contract so you would be free to cancel your service whenever you want. Also remember that even without a contract you still must agree to the Terms and Coditions of the service.

Only if you buy with AT&T the phone at commitment price then they will ask you to agree to the 2-year contract.

[sitnsidewayz]

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Virtual wrote:

Yes, it's possible. By bringing your own phone they will offer you a month-to-month service without contract so you would be free to cancel your service whenever you want. Also remember that even without a contract you still must agree to the Terms and Coditions of the service.

Only if you buy with AT&T the phone at commitment price then they will ask you to agree to the 2-year contract.

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Also, you would still pay the activation fee and be careful what they have you sign in the store. Some stores will try to get you to sign a contract without your knowledge even though you are bringing your own phone.

[UNSC_REACH]

I'd call customer care after the fact to make sure there is no contract on the line, before you leave the store.

Also, your still subject to the terms of service and the wireless service agreement.

[sitnsidewayz]

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UNSC_REACH wrote:

I'd call customer care after the fact to make sure there is no contract on the line, before you leave the store.

Also, your still subject to the terms of service and the wireless service agreement.

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Good idea, because Customer Care wouldn't be able to undo the contract. Only the store that added would be able to.

[UNSC_REACH]

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sitnsidewayz wrote:

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UNSC_REACH wrote:

I'd call customer care after the fact to make sure there is no contract on the line, before you leave the store.

Also, your still subject to the terms of service and the wireless service agreement.

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Good idea, because Customer Care wouldn't be able to undo the contract. Only the store that added would be able to.

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Yeah, and you know if you leave that store and come back they are gonna forget all about that...I had to cancel one of my lines once because of that, but in all fairness it was a 3rd party retailer. Never gonna to a retailer again.

[erichamion]

I know this wasn't your main question, but you said you don't like prepaid phones.  Is it the prepaid phones or the prepaid service that you don't like?  If you're concerned about the phones, you don't have to use a phone that's designated as prepaid.  Except for most of the iPhone models, you can use any phone on prepaid service.  Depending on your usage, that might be more economical that month-to-month postpaid service.

Phones aside, there are still some disadvantages to prepaid service, such as the lack of roaming coverage.  Prepaid may not be right for you.  Just don't let the phone selection be a determining factor - it isn't.

[carpenoctem07]

Att's plans are more affordable for me. lol

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor · Accepted solution]

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erichamion wrote:

I know this wasn't your main question, but you said you don't like prepaid phones.  Is it the prepaid phones or the prepaid service that you don't like?  If you're concerned about the phones, you don't have to use a phone that's designated as prepaid.  Except for most of the iPhone models, you can use any phone on prepaid service.  Depending on your usage, that might be more economical that month-to-month postpaid service.

Phones aside, there are still some disadvantages to prepaid service, such as the lack of roaming coverage.  Prepaid may not be right for you.  Just don't let the phone selection be a determining factor - it isn't.

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That's exactly what I was going to say. I'll just add a little bit more to it. If you want to do a service where you can cancel anytime, I think prepaid sounds right for you. I agree with you on the phone choices - they're not that great, unfortunately. Last year around this time, the best one offered on this site was an LG Neon, so I snatched one up. Later, I realized that I didn't really like it, and bought a separate Samsung Mythic off of craigslist.

Now, I am using a prepaid Samsung Mythic, and the service works fine. It's kind of like having a contract, but without paying the contract price.

You can even use smartphones on AT&T's prepaid network. That's what I like about it. Unfortunately, though, you cannot use any iPhone except the original 2G. If there's a specific device that you like, name it, and all you would need to do is purchase an AT&T PREPAID SIM card, and begin your service. It's that easy.

Let us know what you think. It's definitely something to consider.

[carpenoctem07]

Actually it's a combination of both prepaid phones and service. Prepaid phones are usually the low-end ones and after having an android I just got used to a nicer phone. Prepaid service is lacking, I live in a rural area. My options are tracfone/net10, I'm using net10 temporarily and I swear they find any reason to rip you off. I looked at att gophone and thats my backup plan if I have trouble doing the month to month thing. Oh Straight talk and of course verizon has prepaid. I don't have access to the nicer prepaid services like bigger cities do, my options are very limited. I'd like to have a phone with actual web access and not the limited access prepaid companies in my area give me. Data access is a big issue for me.  Thanks everyone for your help!

[carpenoctem07]

So you can use an ATT smartphone on prepaid? But the highest data package they offer for prepaid is 200 mb? Would that be enough? I know that my android ate up a lot of data!

[Wild Banchi ACE - Professor]

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carpenoctem07 wrote:

So you can use an ATT smartphone on prepaid? But the highest data package they offer for prepaid is 200 mb? Would that be enough? I know that my android ate up a lot of data!

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Yes, you can use an AT&T smartphone on prepaid. Except - I actually think that the highest package is 100MB, if I'm not mistaken...

Maybe you could do some research on GoPhone Pick Your Plan. It's still prepaid, but I'm not really sure of the data packages, as I use a Pay-As-You-Go phone.

If the maximum data package is not enough for you, then I would go month-to-month on a postpaid plan, instead.

[carpenoctem07]

I'll look into that, thanks!

[hme83 ACE - Professor]

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carpenoctem07 wrote:

Hi, I'm confused as I'm reading conflicting information. I am not an ATT customer as of this moment. I was wondering if I bought a used ATT phone, would I still be required to sign a contract and have to pay an ETF if I choose to cancel that contract before 2 years? I've tried cell phone contracts and I don't like them, I just left Verizon because of this. But prepaid phones, well they suck! I'm a student and even though I can afford a high cell phone bill now, there's no guarantee of this in the future. I'd like the freedom of leaving my service at any time that I feel the need to without worrying about an outrageous fee. So is this possible? Or does ATT make you sign up for a contract regardless of whether you take advantage of 2-year contract pricing? Thanks!

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Actually Pick Your Plan service is no longer available to new customers.  It was eliminated by at&t several months ago.

And to get back to your original questions - as previously stated, you can bring your own device to at&t and obtain "no commitment" post paid service.  The advice given previously in this thread re: "how" to do it is good, but be aware that a credit check will still be run, and a deposit may be required based on your credit history.  This is because although the monthly fees for voice service and any feature plans are billed in advance with post paid service, pay per use items are still billed in arrears - so at&t needs the protection of a credit check/potential deposit.

Re: prepaid service - as it can be a feasible option to using post paid service on a no-commitment basis, especially if the credit check/deposit will be an issue.  But since it sounds like you are interested in using data and potentially with a smartphone, you need to understand that the "cons" to doing so with a prepaid account include no roaming partner coverage (as previously noted in the thread) - so no service in many areas you would likely have coverage (and possibly even 3G service) on a post paid plan; also at&t is said to throttle their data speeds with prepaid service.  (I haven't really noticed any issue with this, and I do have both types of service, but my personal data usage doesn't make for a good "test" of this either.)  Also as previously noted, the maximum data allotment available with a prepaid plan is 100 MB for $20/month.  That's quite a bit more expensive than data is on a post paid smartphone data plan with the options of either 200 MB for $15/month or 2GB for $25/month.  But if you will use less than 100 MB of data per month and the other issues of prepaid aren't a concern, then prepaid data can be an effective option since you do receive "rollover" of any unused data allotment as long as you renew the data feature prior to it's expiration (which is unique to prepaid feature plans, and can be accomplished even by renewing the feature plan with one of a lower allotment - the 1MB for $5 plan, in this case).

eta - All that said though re: the "cons" of prepaid data - I can say that consistently a TracFone user (on at&t's network) is able to happily MMS away while I have to resort to using SMS to e-mail because of a lack of data connectivity on at&t's post paid service at large "events" [the most recent being the Big 12 Championship at Jerry World (Cowboys Stadium) in Dallas].  So who's to really say what is best.  LOL.