Unlimited calling plans seem to be all the rage these days, with every carrier provision subscribers with “all you can speak” plans. Now even iPhone users will soon be able to gab all they want, and not pay dearly for it in the next billing cycle. According to Engadget, AT&T will be soon offer a special iPhone bundled unlimited calling plan for the low price of just $119.99 a month. Not a bad deal I suppose, if you spend ever waking hour of your day with a cell phone symbiotically attached to your face.

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Yes, it seems The Boy Genius Report jumped the shark by misinterpreting some cryptically worded internal memo from AT&T as proof positive the company would soon be rolling out a tethering feature (and plan) for iPhone. Sadly, or not, it is not to be. Nope turns out that memo described nothing more the process of tethering iPhone to iTunes. Ironically that document was intended to clear up customer confusion and had precisely opposite effect. AT&T - Raising the bar.

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One of my readers sent me the following story. You be the judge as to the true guilty party.

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Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter ended in September, and the bean counters in every investment firm are hard at work following the money trail, speculating on Apple’s quarterly results. Bear Stearn analyst Andrew Neff, the man most well known for his crazy but prophetic predictions about the implosion and consolidation of the PC industry, believes that iPhone could be the start of something big. He tells investors that while deferred profit sharing with AT&T won’t have an immediate impact on Apple’s bottom line, he sees iPhone being a money machine, driving profits. Doesn’t it warm your heart to read those words?

Of course, what really drove profits this quarter were the purchase of two iPhones by one Kent Pribbernow. Yeah, don’t think I won’t be wanting stock options in return Apple. It’s time I start seeing some greenbacks. Capiche?

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In case you were living under a Palm tree today, AT&T is airing three new ads on the tubes (TV tubes, not internet tubes). The ads depict three common plebes burbling on about how iPhone impacts their life, in various real-life situations. Perhaps the meaning of these spots are lost upon me, or maybe I’m still hungover from that bottle of Cotes du Rhone I downed Saturday night, but I’m not moved or engaged by what I see. iPhone is only vaguely referenced, and done so in a very casual way. The characters lack depth, and serve as typical uninspiring stereotypes aimed at demographics; a businessman, an average “young guy” (or wuss if you will), and a rough cut tattooed mechanic designed to appeal to car thieves working in a chop shops. Yeah, they’re going to move truckloads of iPhones with these ads. I can feel it.

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The honeymoon is over between AT&T and Apple, or at least the romance has gone. Today the wireless carrier takes the wraps off its new flagship smartphone product for business and pro customers; the AT&T Tilt . Better known to the world as the HTC TyTn II. Now granted, carrier branded Windows Mobile smartphones are nothing new, and AT&T has offered these johnny come lately devices since before the name changed from Cingular. What makes this product unique is the promotion and positioning it’s receiving. Noticeably absent from AT&T’s website is any reference to iPhone. I searched high and low and uncovered only one mention of iPhone, obscurely located in a section called “Learn.” Perhaps the partnership between the two companies isn’t as strong as we might think, eh?

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What is up with you, AT&T? Seriously, are you singling me out for some reason? Am I a special needs case? Didn’t you announce to myself and the rest of the world that you would put an end to unnecessary paper carnage for iPhone data billing? More importantly, didn’t I already disable printed invoicing in my account profile…months ago? So why do you do me like this?

I go to my mailbox and discover that you’ve sent me, again, not one…but TWO impregnated billing envelopes, packed with over 60 pages of invoices, like two overstuffed burritos. This makes the third consecutive month that you’ve sent me these love packs by mail. What have I done to deserve this? Have I not paid my bill, loyally, on time each month? Enough is enough. You’re starting to creep me out, as though you are stalking me. I can almost feel Stan Sigman standing outside my window, holding his cue cards.

On the internet, no one can hear your bluff. A blog claims to be offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who can produce a free software unlock solution for iPhone, and deliver it by the chimes of midnight tonight. Of course, no information whatsoever is given to back the legitimacy of this claim, such as who its underwriters are so I’d wager this cash payment is coming from someone’s HP deskjet printer. Nothing more than a single email address is available for correspondence, which doesn’t instill confidence.

My favorite quote from the site, which gives good insight into the minds behind this project…

Me and my friends are very involved in the open source community and yet everybody who worked on IRC, now is concerned about getting paid and charging everybody for an unlock software. I can’t believe it, it’s like Linus Torvalds would start charging for compiling the kernel.

Imagine that…expecting payment for your work and talent. Why, it almost sounds like Capitalism!

Yeah, these are a bunch of kids.

I’ll make a counter offer for anyone who can produce such a solution; one shiny wooden nickel. Any takers?

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I just received a text message earlier today from AT&T, notifying me they are eliminating itemized details in billing, which has been the cause in a recent massive bloat in billing from the wireless carrier.

At&T free msg: We are simplifying your paper bill, removing itemized detail. To view all detail go to att.com/mywireless. Still need full paper bill? Call 611

Nice to see AT&T going green. And it only took public humiliation to change their policy. Who knew?

Thanks to Scott Berks for tipping me as well.

Let this serve as a warning to all readers about the dangers of unexpected international roaming charges. Heric Silva shares his experience and illustrates why you need to keep an eye on your iPhone while traveling overseas.

I recently went to Europe for 9 days. I used my iPhone over there and it seemed to work very well. I received my bill the other day and it was over $1200, yes $1200. When I had my Treo I usually get a bill for about $400 to $500 when I was in Europe. Now the problem is that the iPhone does not have anyway of controlling the amount of data you receive, unlike the treo where you can limit the amount of email data you download and giving you the option to download the rest if you like and letting you know the size prior to downloading it so you can see if it is worth the money. When I used my iPhone and press any of the applications that require updating to retrieve stock, weather, email or whatever it needs…you get hit really hard on the $ per KB international roaming charges. Also the email client does not store the downloaded/viewed emails it always has to pull them down from the web so even if I already looked at it it would download it again and incur roaming data charge!

This is a major flaw that will cost users a bundle. Why do they bother to give you 8GB of memory if they don’t even use it for email storage and downloaded files. The iPhone is essentially an iPod with a phone and the phone portion is very limited.

I called AT&T to complain and they said “sorry these are all legitimate charges, give Apple a call.” I have called them but I was on hold for about 45 minutes so I gave up and will try again. I think they should pay my bill, their poor design causes the users to incur unnecessary data charges.

This flaw should be made public and they should re-reimburse all users that have incurred these massive charges.

Over the weekend I received my AT&T bill in the mail - both of them. Huh…TWO envelopes? Rather than the usual slim parcel containing a handful of billing statements, I received two overstuffed packets filled with nearly sixty pages, detailing every minutia of data. While this is still a far cry from Justine Ezarik’s infamous 300 page AT&T bill, it still exceeds the boundaries of reason and is horrific waste of tree.

Somewhere in the world, birds and squirrels were made homeless to provide me with this worthless example of excess. AT&T promises to cut down on the paper trail, but I have my own solution - online billing. I pay my cell phone bill online, and have for several years now. Why AT&T feels compelled to bless me with redundant paper invoices is beyond me.

Join AT&T, kill a tree.

What are you doing, Dave?

Dave?

You can begin popping corks off Champaign bottles and dance through the streets in your underpants. This is the moment that many folks have waited for.

In case you’ve been living under a rock this morning the internet is aflutter with news that iPhone has now finally unlocked, using an $80 tool called Turbo SIM card.

The feat is said to be 100% effective, meaning that it unlocks all of iPhones features and functions, allowing users to make and receive calls, SMS, access GPRS readio (data), browse the web, send email, download porn, over any GSM network. Viola!

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Justine Ezarik from Tasty Blog Snack got an unexpected surprise in the mail today - her first phone bill from AT&T, after purchasing an iPhone and switching carriers. Nothing unusual about that, except that it arrived in a box (that would be my first clue that something terribly wrong had occurred at AT&T’s billing department), not an envelope, and…oh yeah…it’s 300 freaking pages long!

AT&T apologized sincerely for this error, and promised that in future all iPhone bills will arrive in carefully packed boxes stacked on wooden palettes, delivered by forklift to your front door for your convenience.

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File this under “Too good to be true”, but one commenter and two other people emailing me claim that AT&T salespeople unlocked their iPhones after canceling service. Sound credible to you? Me neither. But according to a user named RAJ…

2 OF MY FRIENDS HAD THE CONTRACT WITH AT&T. THEY TOOK IT ON 29 JUNE WHEN I-PHONE WAS LAUNCHED, TODAY ON 1ST AUG JUST AFTER ONE MONTH OF THEIR CONTRACT THEY SIMPLY CANCELED THE CONTRACT BY PAYING EARLY CONTRACT TERMINATION FEES OF 175 ( ALTHOUGH THE FEES WAS ALSO WAIVED OFF FOR THEM FOR SOME REASON). THEN THE AT&T HAD UNLOCKED THEIR I-PHONES BY PUTTING SOME CODES. NOW THEY SAID THAT THEY CAN USE THEIR I-PHONE WITH ANY OTHER CARRIER TOO….

Now, this has to be true because it was typed in All-caps. Anything typed completely in uppercase characters must be taken seriously.

So there you have it. Whether this is true or not I cannot verify, so don’t shoot me - I’m just the messenger.

Dave Stolte had a nasty surprise in store for him, upon returning from a trip to Eurorpe (with his iPhone) - a $3,000 bill from AT&T. It seems David learned the hard way that AT&T does not offer international roaming with its iPhone data plans.

Two weeks of travel with sporadic AT&T EDGE network usage off and on mixed with wifi when available… $3000. Doing some research, I learned this morning that AT&T offers unlimited international data usage at $70 per month to its Blackberry customers. Here’s my bottom line: I want this same usage plan to be made available to iPhone customers and to be applied retroactively to my account.

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AT&T doused analyst’s wild expectations yesterday by announcing that on the weekend of launch, AT&T saw just 146,000 iPhone activations, well short of expectations. That’s activation, not actual sales. Analysts had projected that during the same period more than 500,000 iPhones had sold through. Needless to say these two numbers don’t jive, leading many firms like Piper Jafrey to question how successful iPhone sales really are.

I had the same reaction when taking my dog to go potty this morning. After feeding him an entire bag of Puppy Chow, I expected far more substantial return. Instead the results were weak and disappointing. As a result, I am placing both my dog and iPhone on eBay.

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Among the dull roar of criticisms about iPhone I have to endure, one in particular stands out as the most irritating and unfounded - the attack against AT&T. I hear these slanderous indictments all the time…“Why did Apple choose AT&T?”, “AT&T sucks! They should have gone with Verizon or Sprint”, “AT&T is evil”. Blah blah blah.

Here’s a bit of schooling for you numbskulls - What you don’t understand is that the quality and reliability of wireless service in the U.S. is subjective and varies from one location to another. For example, in my specific locale, Sprint offers the worst reliability and coverage of any major carrier. T-Mobile is practically non-existent. Verizon offers great service, but their selection of handsets is abysmal. So, for all practical purposes, AT&T is the “best” wireless carrier for me. Your experience will vary. A friend of mine who lives in Redmond Washington (no, it isn’t Bill Gates) says that T-Mobile offers the best coverage and voice quality in his area, while Sprint is teh suck. So which one of us is right? We both are.

Unlike other parts of the world like Asia and Europe, wireless infrastructure in North America is less ubiquitous and unevenly distributed. This is the reason why we suffer through so many dropped calls, poor voice quality, and latency.

So yes, AT&T does suck. And so does Verizon. So does Sprint. So does T-Mobile. And so on. There is no “best” wireless carrier, only best in your location. Live it, learn it, be it.

American Technology Research today reported from sources unknown that more than 25% of iPhone users are “switchers” coming from other wireless carriers. The firm also sees iPhone’s potential to lure users to a particular carrier as a stong bargaining chip for Apple as it negotiates exclusive contracts to one lucky European carrier.

You know the execs at Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile have to be drinking lots of pink medicinal liquid right about now.

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A story I posted earlier last month regarding AT&T’s decision to exclude its Business Account customers from buying iPhones has become a raging bonfire for angry readers venting their frustrations against AT&T. Some have threatened to organize a class action lawsuit the wireless carrier.

A reader named Rob Schrader wrote…

I just purchased 2 8 gig iPhones today after waiting for 3 hours in line. Once I got home to activate them I found that I can not use with existing ATT business accounts. They told me that I would have to transfer my business number to a personal account. When I called Apple to return, I was told they would charge me a 10 percent re-stocking fee. Sounds to that ATT is cooking the books forcing existing customers to create new accounts and showing them as new subscribers. Sounds like a class action suit to me.

Mark shares his resolve…

I waited months for the iPhone (like others) but was never told that my waiting was in vain. I bought an iphone like others and had to find out the hard way that I couldn’t use it. Nobody from Apple or AT&T seemed to know the truth, or were rather hiding the truth. Sign me up for the suit as well.

Marlyn writes that AT&T isn’t forthcoming about the policy and that she had to demand a waiver of the restocking fee, which she got…

The same thing happened to me. My number is under my husband’s business account but they didn’t bother to tell me that I could not use the iPhone when I purchased it after waiting in line for hours. I took it home and of course had to open the box to find out. I was LIVID. I took the phone back and when it came time for me to sign for my refund (minus “restocking fees”) I told them I wasn’t budging until they gave me something in writing stating they sold me the phone knowing full well it was a business account. The manager then made a phone call and credited my account the $60.00 restocking fee and refunded my credit card the cost of the balance of the iPhone and accessories I purchased along with it. Don’t let them put the screws to you people. DEMAND your FULL refund. It is NOT YOUR FAULT!

Read on for the full list of comments and complaints. Wear a flame retardant suit, it’s hot in there.

AT&T sent out an email today notifying subscribers that it is limiting the number of iPhones available to one-per-customers. I support this move. The last thing we need on Friday are profiteers swooping in like vultures to buy up most of the supply chain in hopes of making a huge markup on eBay.

We all want an iPhone, and this limitation ensures that we at least stand a fair chance of getting one.