Hasta La Gadget!

The Verizon iPhone is due in stores soon, but AT&T customers aching to switch face one nasty hurdle: the early-termination fee.

Many AT&T customers who bought an iPhone are still stuck in two-year contracts, and they’d have to pay a hefty price to get out. AT&T increased the early-termination fee last June from $175 to $325. (The ETF is reduced by $10 for each month you’re on contract.)

So that means switching to a Verizon iPhone would require buying a new phone and paying the termination fee, which would set you back at least $500. Yeowch.

Pre-orders for the Verizon iPhone 4 begin Feb. 3, and if you just can’t stand the thought of sticking with AT&T any longer, here are a few simple ways to help subsidize the switch.

Sell Your iPhone on Gazelle

I’ve sold a number of devices on Gazelle, an electronics trader, with no issues. Hop over to Gazelle, type in iPhone 4 and answer a few questions about the condition of the phone. Right now Gazelle is quoting a perfect-condition iPhone 4 for $360. Not bad at all — that covers more than the termination fee.

After you opt to sell your iPhone 4 to Gazelle, you enter your information in the site, and then Gazelle will send you a free box with a shipping label to stuff your iPhone 4 into. Drop it off at your nearest FedEx location, and wait a few weeks for the money to roll in. You can choose to receive payment in the form of check, PayPal payment or Amazon gift card.

I like this option, because you can get a quote first and mail your iPhone to Gazelle after buying a new one, so you won’t be left phoneless for a few days.

Sell on Craigslist

This solution is obvious: Put your iPhone 4 on Craigslist and wait for the fish to bite. There’s a good chance you’ll get more money than you would from Gazelle, if you’re willing to put up with often-flaky Craigslist buyers. Some iPhone 4 listings on Craigslist are going as high as $600.

If you take this route, we recommend erasing all data from the device and removing your SIM card before handing it off to a stranger.

Trade It In to Verizon

Verizon has a trade-in program, where you can swap your AT&T iPhone for a Verizon Wireless gift card, which can go toward your purchase of a Verizon iPhone. To get a quote, visit Verizon’s trade-in program website, and enter your iPhone model.

If you choose to sell the device, Verizon will mail you a self-addressed prepaid envelope. Drop it off at a mailing center and wait for that gift card. Verizon is currently quoting the 16-GB AT&T iPhone 4 at $212.

Photo: Sam Gustin/Wired.com

AT&T’s numbers are up, and they’re good: $31.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, $653 million more than Q4 the previous year. 4.1 million iPhones and 442,000 tablets were put online by the company that quarter, helping to drive 2.8 million new wireless subscribers, 95.5 million total, and a boost in revenue per subscriber of 2.2 percent. That’s $62.88 average per month per subscriber — maybe ditching unlimited data is paying off. Additionally, the company posted its best ever Q4 wireless churn (subscribers switching carriers) of just 1.32 percent (1.15 percent postpaid), but we’re thinking the launch of a certain smartphone on a certain competitor could possibly have that number increasing ever so slightly this quarter. We’ll circle back in three months and see where things stand.

AT&T posts Q4 financials, 2.8 million subscribers added, revenue up 2.1 percent year-over-year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AT&T  | Email this | Comments

For years, suit-and-tie circles have bowed to BlackBerry as the king of corporate communication, but iOS has been creeping in on enterprise territory, calling into question RIM’s sovereignty in the boardroom. The folks at Deutsche Bank Equity Research struck the most recent blow to RIM’s enterprise dominance with the announcement that they’ll buck BlackBerry for iPhone, following a trial using Good Technology’s secure email app. The company tested the app in conjunction with Microsoft Exchange Server, delivering AES 192-encrypted email and calendar data to employees, and, according to the firm’s research analyst, the iPhone proved an easier and faster solution to BlackBerry. Last summer, AT&T announced that 40 percent of iPhone sales are enterprise, and we just reported on RIM’s possible move to devices beyond the BlackBerry. We’re not saying it’s off to the guillotine with the old standard bearer, but it definitely looks like there are new contenders for the enterprise crown.

Deutsche Bank ditches BlackBerry for iPhone, Apple puts chink in RIM’s enterprise armor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Apple Insider  | Email this | Comments

Bits and pieces about the Verizon iPhone have finally fallen into place to tell the full story on how much the coveted handset will cost you.

Apple’s website this week temporarily revealed that the Verizon iPhone voice plans start at $40 per month. Text-messaging plans start at $5 per month, or you can pay per use for 20 cents each text.

Also news is that Verizon’s hot-spotting feature — the ability to turn the handset into a Wi-Fi network to share an internet connection with multiple devices — will cost an extra $20 per month on top of voice and data plans. As part of the same plan, customers will also have the option to use tethering, which shares the iPhone’s internet connection with one device. The plan includes 2 GB of data for hotspotting plus tethering per month.

As for the price of internet usage, Verizon said Tuesday that the iPhone would offer an unlimited data plan for $30 per month. However, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam clarified that this plan would be available for a limited time, as Verizon will eventually move to a tiered pricing structure for data.

So there you have it: the Verizon iPhone starts at $200 with a two-year contract, and if you go with the minimum voice, data and texting plans, you’ll pay about $75 per month. Factor in tax and government fees, and that should amount to roughly $90 per month.

On AT&T, the options are a bit different:

1. Unlimited data is no longer an option for new subscribers, though many old subscribers still have the option to stay on their unlimited data plan. The cheapest data plan costs $15 per month for 200 MB.
2. There isn’t a pay-per-use option for texting.
3. AT&T doesn’t support hot-spotting, though it does offer tethering for the same $20-per-month rate.
4. However, AT&T doesn’t give you additional data for tethering when you pay $20 each month; this comes out of your data plan. (So if you buy a 2-GB data plan for general internet usage, for example, tethering counts toward the 2 GB.)

So with the tiered data-pricing structure, the minimum you’ll pay for an iPhone on AT&T per month is $65 for voice and data; after fees and taxes that comes out to roughly $75 per month.

Confused yet? See the chart above for a side-by-side comparison of AT&T and Verizon iPhone costs.

The Verizon iPhone hits stores Feb. 10.

Updated: A clarification of the AT&T iPhone’s tethering plan was added to this story Jan. 27, 2011 at 10 a.m. PT.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com