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Cell phones forum: Switching Phones with same carrier

by: Batman20 May 17, 2012 9:44 AM PDT

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Switching Phones with same carrier

by Batman20 - 5/17/12 9:44 AM

My daughter wants to upgrade to a iPhone 4 with AT&T. Her old phone was a HTC Inspire with data plan.My wife is currently using a LG Xenon without data but has a cracked screen. Can I switch SIM cards from her LG to my daughter's HTC without adding a data plan. She has unlimited text and voice but doesn't want data. They're both smartphones, the only real difference is the LG is 3G and the HTC is 4G. Can I do this or is AT&T going to charge me for a data plan we don't want? We're all under the same Family Plan, the only difference is my daughter has data added to her line.


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So far, ATT detects the phone is what it is and adds it.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 5/17/12 10:43 AM

In Reply to: Switching Phones with same carrier by Batman20

It may be cheaper to replace the phone with a non-smart phone.
Bob


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To add to what Bob said

by Pepe7 - 5/18/12 6:43 PM

In Reply to: Switching Phones with same carrier by Batman20

ATT will indeed add a data plan since it's required for an Inspire. OTOH, it's likely that ATT will eventually be moving to a shared data plan for families/groups (like Verizon will this summer). Everyone can share the same bucket of minutes/data in this sense and the people who don't use it don't have to.

If you need a smartphone which does not require data you are limited to an unlocked non-ATT branded Nokia smartphone like the C5 or E5-00 (double check those model numbers @ amazon). ATT at this time would not force you to add a data plan with those phones, along with a few others.


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Are you sure they're both smartphones?

by fondy - 5/24/12 2:18 PM

In Reply to: Switching Phones with same carrier by Batman20

Supposedly AT&T won't activate a smartphone on its network unless you add a data plan. As far as I know, that's been their policy since at least 2008. Maybe your wife's phone just happened to fall through the cracks? If I had to guess, I'd say plugging your wife's SIM into your daughter's phone won't be enough to get things working. You may even wind up with an additional data plan added to your account. Only one way to find out. Let us know how it goes.


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All ATT phones aren't 'activated'

by Pepe7 - 5/25/12 7:07 AM

In Reply to: Are you sure they're both smartphones? by fondy

In addition, either the SIM card is active and account is current, or it is not. Many of us move SIM cards between phones all the time. Anyway, they have the ability to detect a handset and quite often add the mandatory features (such as a data plan) as needed.


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