The Lance J. Technoweb

I commute via rail, and so I've always been interested in adding tethering to my cell phone plan. I figure it'd be a good way to spend my commute other than, um, reading literature. And now that the iPhone has tethering capabilities, I figured its my perfect opportunity to get more by spending more. Sadly, AT&T hasn't announced its tethering plan yet, but I decided I can infer some information from their existing plans. I did some research today on AT&T's website, looking into the tethering options for devices they sell now, such as the BlackBerry. I "made" a 450 minute voice plan and added tethering... and the total monthly fee came to $99.99 per month. Certainly more than the $69.99 plan, but clearly tethering will use lots more bandwidth. I also noted that AT&T has a 5 GB cap on their tethering plan. As a cost comparison, I went to Verizon's online store. They didn't have a tethering option readily visible, so I just made a $450 sm...

I have been very interested in the new iPhone 3GS, and so I decided to take a look to see if it'd be possible to upgrade. I made a few phone calls and did some research. I learned that AT&T will allow me to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS without special charges after 1 year and 8 months under contract ... so, happily I don't have to wait the full 2 years to get my hands on the new iPhone. But since I somewhat recently bought my iPhone, I still have to wait another year before I can upgrade. However, since I can't wait, I can upgrade to the new iPhone 3GS for a fee - they'll let me upgrade to the new phone if I pay a $200 premium. That means that I'd pay $399 for a phone that usually goes for $199. The $200 "surcharge" is a number that's comparable to the "contract early termination" fee. I bought my 16 GB iPhone 3G for $299. If I sell it now, I'll have a newer battery and a newer warranty. I feel those improvements are worth $50 to me...