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New “unlimited” iPhone plan has same old embarrassing SMS limits

March 8, 2008 by Dr. Macenstein
Filed under: Not Cool, Opinion, WTF, iPhone, throw us a bone, whining

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As someone with no friends, the basic 450 minute iPhone calling plan with its 200 text messages is more than adequate for my needs. However, each time I go to the movies (by myself) I notice the throngs of teens (with friends) text messaging each other, quite often texting the person sitting next to them. It actually seems these days that text messaging is more important in a phone than the actual ability to make a call.

Because of this, I find it odd that AT&T’s newly announced Unlimited iPhone Calling Plan offers no boost at all in the amount of monthly text messages one can send/receive each month. In fact, looking across the iPhone rate plans, spending $60 more per month gets you nothing but more minutes. You would think that paying DOUBLE the price of the basic plan might at the very least double the amount of text messages to (a still pathetic) 400 messages, but no.

Of course, they do call it the “Unlimited CALLING Plan”, so I suppose they aren’t misleading anyone into thinking they should be getting anything mother than more minutes, but it just seems like an ass-backwards plan for such an “ass frontwards” device like the iPhone.

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Comments

10 Comments on New “unlimited” iPhone plan has same old embarrassing SMS limits

Aayush Arya on Sat, 8th Mar 2008 11:46 am

LOL! That’s a hilarious ending right there.

Good work, doc.

Luis on Sat, 8th Mar 2008 1:23 pm

They just want to cash somehow, I’m very disappointed. One thing though, last month I went over my messages like by 26 and they didn’t charge me anything extra. I find it very weird, but I’m not complaining.

SHRIKEE on Sat, 8th Mar 2008 2:14 pm

why would you wanna put limits on cellphone plans anyway? That’s so 1999.
Or does that just mean there is a little extra fee if you go over the “limit”.

Here they just give you minutes and you pay like 2 cents per minute extra if you go over your minutes.

Elena-Beth Kaye on Sat, 8th Mar 2008 5:15 pm

Pointless article. From the beginning, ATT has offered iPhone users two more options: for $10 more/month, you get 1500 SMS text messages instead of 200, and for another $10/month, you get unlimited SMS text messages.

Zorin on Sun, 9th Mar 2008 11:51 am

This is bizarre since voice calls use many orders of magnitude more bandwidth than text messages. You’d think that when you have an unlimited plan, the telcos would WANT you to text instead of call since it saves them bandwidth!

But no, stupidity strikes again…

WU on Sun, 9th Mar 2008 4:26 pm

Zorin, it’s not bizarre, it’s pure profit.

SMS runs on email servers, so it costs virtually nothing, and the phone companies are selling digital crack to all the little boys and girls hooked on their product.

Why make it cheaper when they are snapping it up at the current price?

fatal on Sun, 9th Mar 2008 10:30 pm

all i have to say is, http://www.viewmymessage.com

SUX

Chris on Mon, 10th Mar 2008 5:20 am

Yeah, I can’t believe they dropped the ball on this. I thought for sure they’d go Unlimited on the SMS text messages when they unveiled the Unlimited plan for the iPhone. Really, really disappointed.

montex on Mon, 10th Mar 2008 2:28 pm

I pay an extra $10/month for 1500 SMS text messages - and I haven’t gone over that limit. The chart and article ignores this option. What was the point of this article - did they want to get their facts wrong?

Phelim on Mon, 10th Mar 2008 7:49 pm