A Foreigner’s Guide to iPhone on AT&T

Being out in the US without a Social Security number means I have no credit rating, which makes me in-elegible for AT&T’s iPhone contract. It also means I can’t get a US credit card, although opening a bank account is easy enough. I phoned AT&T to see if I would be able to use their ‘GoPhone’ plan which uses an automated pre-pay arrangement and doesn’t involve a contract. After a lot of holding, I was told that I could do this. Although I couldn’t use my UK credit card, I could use something called a ‘phone check’ which allows them to take money from a bank account without a card.

So I bought my iPhone and proceeded to activate it. After some nervous moments where AT&T’s clunky registration site forced me to enter a US address located in ‘United Kingdom’, I was slightly surprised to find that it actually worked. I’m now charged $52 per month for 300 minutes and unlimited data over EDGE (another $10 per month would give me 1000 minutes).

I’m actually pretty happy with this. I can cancel at any time – i.e. when I go back to the UK – and hopefully unlock the phone and put my Vodafone SIM in there… assuming someone cracks Firmware version 1.1 by then. In the meantime I get unlimited data, which is handy, and enough minutes to get by on. The only negative is that I have to pay for incoming calls and texts too out of my minutes… I can’t get used to this particular US practice.