Let’s say you’ve upgraded to a new iPhone and want your kids to have your old one. More and more, kids have phones. The iPhone is nice, since it doubles as a game device. But you don’t want them to have the smartphone features AT&T charges more for, both to save money and maybe to keep them off the web. Here’s some advice.
Technically, if you’re going to use an iPhone, AT&T will charge you $15 to $25 for a data plan, no ifs, ands or buts. You have to have it. Those are the rules, even if you don’t want data on the phone. In fact, AT&T will even suggest that you need to have the data plan, otherwise you won’t be able to use the phone to update it and so on.
The GoPhone Route
The reality is a bit different. AT&T has pre-paid phones, through its GoPhone service. Want to turn that iPhone into a data-less, data plan-less phone? One way is to turn it into a GoPhone.
Put a GoPhone SIM card into an iPhone, and you can make calls, get text messages and just fine. You even get voicemail. It won’t be the iPhone’s visual voicemail, but your kids will struggle on somehow. After all, their parents did for years.
What you can’t do is get out onto the web, which for many parents is just fine. Of course, you can still get out via WiFi. But you won’t have your kids running around chewing up their prepayments surfing the web.
Where do you get a GoPhone SIM card? Any AT&T store will sell one to you. I wouldn’t tell them you want it for an iPhone. Do that, and you’re going to get the “No, you can’t do that response.”
Instead, find some old AT&T-compatible non-smartphone, take it in, and say you want a GoPhone SIM card for it. You’ll have to top the card up initially with at least $25, I believe, and that lasts 90 days. Text messages and calls cost $0.25 each, and you can add on text messaging bundles.
Don’t have an old phone? Buy one. Sometimes you can get a refurbished basic model online direct from AT&T for as little as $25, and that includes $25 in call credits. Right now, the cheapest phone is $45. That also comes with call credit.
Oh, where to put the SIM card? If you don’t know, look at the top of your iPhone. There’s a small hole, just the right size to put the end of a paper clip into. Push one in there, and the SIM card along with its holder will come out of your iPhone. But the new SIM card into that.
The Family Plan Route
Want your kids on your calling plan? You can do that, too. The key is that you need to put them on using a “dumb” phone. Again, find an old AT&T-compatible non-smartphone or buy a cheap GoPhone. Take that phone in and ask to have it added to your account. You’ll be given a SIM card for it. They’ll probably even put the card in your phone. Take the SIM card out (you know, after you’ve left the store) and put it in your iPhone. Now you’ve got an extra line using an iPhone for $10 per month.
You shouldn’t find the data will work on the iPhone, because that’s not been enabled for the dumb phone that AT&T thinks is on your account. But to be safe, go to Settings, then General, then Network and disable Cellular Data. That should do the trick.
Warning Time
Worried about how AT&T might react to this? Technically, they could boot you from their network. Chances are, they won’t even notice. But yes, do this, and you’re taking a risk. Going the GoPhone route is “safer,” in that you’re only risking that prepaid line.
Obviously, if you start having phone-specific problems, you’re not going to get AT&T support. They’ll think you’re using a different model phone, so you might find if there’s a problem with your voicemail, they might not be able to help. But you’ll probably be OK, in most case.
As for updating the phone, you can do that via iTunes just like a “real” data enabled iPhone. iTunes doesn’t care what SIM card is in your phone. But you will have to have the phone tied to your Apple account. Yes, you can have more than one phone on the same Apple account.
Is it cheating to do this? Technically, yes. If you have qualms, don’t do it. Personally, I wish AT&T wouldn’t consider a “smartphone” to be smart (and charge a data plan for it) if you’ve specifically asked for the smart parts to be disabled. And having been in a number of AT&T stores recently, I’ve heard a number of parents specifically ask for exactly that.
Hence this post 
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
If possible do NOT have them insert the SIM into the prepaid phone.
AT&T typically locks the gophone SIM to the first phone its inserted in for 6 months.
It’s better to order the phone online.
at&t will notice that you put a function phone sim into your old iPhone and automatically add a data plan to your account.
Thanks for this post. My mother is the lucky recipient of my old 3G, but I anticipate my child will be a future recipient of an old iPhone, so this is very helpful!
To my knowledge, every iPhone sold in the US is locked to its original SIM card, so simply putting in another SIM card won’t work. Did you have to jailbreak the phone first, so you could then SIM unlock it with software in order for the GoPhone or family plan SIM to work?
My experience is that the phones are not locked to a particular SIM card. They’re locked to SIM cards on AT&T’s network, that’s all.
Agree on what Danny said, it’s only on AT&T’s network.
Monitoring our kids is important as well.
Hmmm, my experience with the iPhone 2G and 3G that we have in the family is that they were locked to the particular SIM card they came with. Maybe the newer phones are now only locked to AT&T SIM cards? The best thing to do would be to check with a friend’s SIM card before paying for another line.
Danny and others – you’re right, I’ll have to eat my words, I had to do a restore of my wife’s second hand 2G and an AT&T SIM worked fine. I don’t know why my recollection was otherwise before. But I did need to do a jailbreak/unlock if I wanted to use a T-Mobile or someone else’s SIM.
Glad it worked, Brian. You definitely have to jailbreak your phone if bought in the US and if you want to use a non-AT&T SIM. It’s locked to AT&T SIMs, though any AT&T SIM seems to work.
What’s the process? Do you restore the iPhone first then pop in the new SIM? Considering trying it on my old original iPhone.
You don’t have to restore the phone. Just putting in the new SIM is fine.
Thanks, Danny. Apparently it’s not quite that easy with an original iPhone, but works fine with later versions. If I pop in a new SIM card, I get the screen on the iPhone telling me to connect to the iTunes software which tries to walk me through registering the phone. That’s ALL the iPhone will let me do at this point.
In researching, I read that apparently an original iPhone has to be unlocked first. Haven’t gotten to that yet but might give it a shot.
Most useful blog article of the year. Thank you.
I inherited an old iPhone 3G that I wanted to use, but I didn’t want to use $99+ in service for data.
I purchased a GoPhone from ATT.com (cost about $10 for refurbished phone, $25 for prepaid GoPhone card and $15 in taxes = total $50)
Today I received the GoPhone and removed the SIM card.
I inserted a bent paperclick into the small hole on the top of the iPhone, which caused the old SIM card to pop out (in a thin frame). The new SIM card fit in perfectly.
Powered on the phone, dialed in the prepaid $25 credit (easy, just follow instructions) and VIOLA. I have an iPhone that has a (new) phone number, will send and receive text messages too, and when I am within a WiFi zone I can use all the apps and web services that I like.
Worked like a charm. Thank you for allowing me to make use of a 3G iphone which, otherwise, would be gathering dust.
Yep, tried popping a GoPhone SIM into my 3GS and it works fine. Not so with an original iPhone (2g). I had to unlock it to make it work (jail broke it while I was at it).
Thanks Richard, at least I know I’m not going crazy with my earlier observation posted on 8/10 that this method didn’t work with my 2G the first time. That was my fuzzy recollection from jailbreaking/unlocking that phone about a year ago. On 9/7 I had to restore my wife’s phone for an unrelated reason, and that’s when I noticed the SIM worked without unlocking. I did a bit of digging and found out that an unlock of a 2G is permanent and survives restores, unlike unlocking newer phones.
Hey, just wondering a year later, if there’s any lessons learned or updates? About to do this with an old iPhone 3G, just wanted to make sure nothing has changed!
It should be pretty harmless to borrow another AT&T SIM and try it out, let us know if it works. Though it if doesn’t, then you’re stuck with the jailbreak route, which may or may not work depending on the version of the modem firmware it has installed. I keep my old 3G for overseas travel and have a custom OS 4.2.1 firmware which preserved the unlock. Good luck!
Still works. In fact, even works with an iPhone 4. You can outright say you want to use the iPhone on a pay-per-month plan. The only thing that’s not allowed is any data alllowance.