Prepaid iPhone: How to use an AT&T GoPhone SIM with the iPhone

For the purpose of testing, this week we purchased an iPhone and decided to check the options for AT&T prepaid service.  The goal was simple: create a prepaid iPhone by using an AT&T GoPhone SIM card and an unlocked iPhone. Essentially there are two choices when it comes to prepaid service with AT&T: Pay As You Go or Pick Your Plan. The difference between the two plans is that pay as you go simply means you put a value on your account and you get charged standard itemized billing per minute usage, text message, picture message and Media Net (Internet Usage). Pick Your Plan is much more beneficial to prepaid users looking to have a standard plan since it gives you standard minutes with Rollover, Nationwide Long Distance and most importantly add-on options for text messaging/multimedia messaging and internet usage.

Update 04/15/2012: AT&T is reportedly changing the GoPhone plans so prepaid iPhone users will be required to subscribe to a $25/month voice plan in order to add data.  You can read the full report here.

Update 11/11/2011: If you’re running iOS 5.0.1 we’ve put together a jailbreaking tutorial (here) that will get you on your way to a prepaid iPhone gophone in no time.

If you want a Prepaid iPhone, specifically an At&t GoPhone iPhone original, 3G or 3GS simply follow the guide below. I’ve tried to cover the material as best I could and I’ve updated it as new solutions have been released. The original iPhone GoPhone Prepaid Service guide was written back when the latest iPhone OS was 1.1.2 so the current solutions are far easier.

[Update: 12/12/09] Currently the simplest and fastest way to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3G or 3GS is to use Blackra1n. The software is currently available for both Mac and PC Users. Simply direct your browser to http://www.blackra1n.com/ and click the appropriate link (pc or mac). Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed on your computer and your iPhone connected to the computer before running the .exe file. Once blackra1n has finished unlocking and jailbreaking your iPhone, return to the remainder of this guide.

[Update: 10/18/10]There is now another solution to unlocking your iPhone original, 3G, 3GS or 4. Of course unlocking the iPhone 4 is not very useful for prepaid users just yet because it uses the microSIM instead of the full-sized SIM card, but it’s good to note that you can unlock the phone for future reference. Simple head to http://www.greenpois0n.com/ and download the unlocking solution for your specific OS – Linux / Windows / Mac.

Step 1:

Using one of the two methods above, unlock your iPhone original, 3G or 3GS.  When we first wrote this guide the method for jailbreaking and bypassing activation was much more complicated.  I’m happy to report that using either Blackra1n or Greenpoison will automatically unlock your iPhone and make it much easier to get your iPhone GoPhone Prepaid Service started.  If you have trouble unlocking your iPhone with either of these mentioned above you can drop a comment below or directly on their respective websites and we’ll do our best to answer the questions.

Step 2:

Purchase an At&t GoPhone. I recommend buying from Amazon or your local retailer whichever you prefer.  Since most states do not charge sales tax you usually save a bit of money with Amazon.

Once you have your GoPhone you will need to visit At&t GoPhone Activations and complete GoPhone activation. At this point you need to decided whether to choose the Pick Your Plan or the Pay as You Go Option.

We chose the Pick your Plan Option 29.99. We also took advantage of the Unlimited Messaging feature for $20.00 and the unlimited Media Net internet for $20.00. This brings the grand total to $69.99 a month for a small amount of voice minutes, but an unlimited texting, picture messaging, and EDGE internet capable device.

Note: At&t is constantly modifying plans.  The key aspects of this step are picking a voice plan and adding a data plan.  As of today, October 18, At&t has limited the prepaid data plans to 200MB.  Add the plan that it allows you so long as you have some sort of GoPhone data add on feature.

Step 3:

Take out the SIM card from the AT&T GoPhone and place SIM Card in the Iphone.  You are now ready to use AT&T Pick Your Plan Service. If you need to add money to your GoPhone account or want to make changes to the Plan features/add ons you can do it online.

AT&T GoPhone Account Login

You are now done and have your iPhone ready to use with a small number of voice minutes, but unlimited internet and unlimited texting/picture messaging. Grand Total per month will be 69.99, but if you are not as heavy of a text messenger you can always use the $10.00 option and have 1500 text messages per month. Alternatively you can lower your internet plan if you intend to use WiFi access a majority of the time.

[Update 10/18/10]: For those of you having problems using Data on your iPhone use the following method

• Be sure you are on a WiFi connection so you can access the web on your iPhone
• Using Safari on the newly setup prepaid iPhone, visit unlockit.co.nz and tap ‘Continue’
• On the next screen tap on ‘Custom APN’
• Select the carrier, for this example it’s going to be “US – AT&T” since using AT&T doesn’t require a jailbreak or unlock
• Tap on the “Create Profile” button to create and download the custom APN profile
• You will then see a screen saying you are about to install a new profile, click on ‘Install’ and then “Replace”
• A “Profile Installed” screen will appear next showing the new APN profile that has been installed
• The data plan should now work

To test that the prepaid data plan is working, disable WiFi on the iPhone and look at the upper left carrier signal to see if Edge or 3G text appears, this will show you if the data plan is working. If data doesn’t appear to be working, restart your iPhone and things should work fine.

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