I’m confused as well. I have an iPhone on a family plan (admittedly it’s two iPhones) and each of them have unlimited data. What they did was do the $60 for minutes to share between the two and then tack on the data (and any text messaging extras you wanted) on top of that. I have no clue how you could get a limited data plan with the iPhone.
Me neither. I thought all the domestic data plans were unlimited. When I went overseas, I had to purchase a limited overseas add-on for a month and watch my data downloads very carefully to avoid the unbelievably expensive overages, but otherwise, in the States, I thought all the data plans were unlimited.
Yes, I believe currently all data plans offered have unlimited data included. And yes, to address previous posters’ inquisitions, all iPhones purchased from authorized retailers must enroll in mandatory unlimited data plans.
However, I purchased my phone off of eBay. I was taking a big risk there, for a number of reasons. The biggest, of course, was the possibility of huge overage costs for data. I figured that if I just stayed within my WiFi zone when I accessed the Internet, I wouldn’t need an unlimited data plan. Then of course, the “incident” occurred. I learned my lesson.
Before I purchased my iPhone, I had a great feature that is no longer offered now. It included unlimited texting and 5MB of data/month for only $14.99. Even though they no longer offered it, Cingular/AT&T allowed me to continue using it. To put that in perspective, it costs $20/month for unlimited texting alone at the current rate. But now that I think about it, 5MB of data per month is a bit paltry by today’s standards.
That kind of reminds me of those outrageous costs for dial-up Internet access when it was starting to become popular. I believe there was a base rate of about $20 per month, which included 10 hours of Internet access. Then, each additional hour was somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.00. Yikes.
I had an iPod touch for awhile, but I eventually sold it to a friend. Can you use Pandora on the touch? Why am I just finding this out now? Arg!
Well actually, it’s usually around $130. Oh, and this is a family plan, so for three lines, it’s not too bad. I was just looking at the last bill which was $204, but I remembered that it was unusually high because my parents were on a cruise in Canada. My mom lost her passport, so she had to call home and arrange for someone to mail proper documentation. The roaming charges inflated that bill quite nicely.
And I’m a bit confused. You say $175 seems unacceptable, yet you’d gladly pay the $1,000 “which isn’t that much money.” I think both are pretty high, and negotiating the $1,000 down is worth a fight. What do I have to lose?
… right through the pants, leaving some very “modern” art on the wall behind me.
Sure can, according to its listing on iTunes at least. Most apps work on both the iPhone and the iPod Touch that I’ve seen. I’m sure a few only work with the iPhone though.
[Tangent]
A perfect example of what is special about the SDMB. In addition to what seems like its near-infinite collective knowledge, the abundance of insightful, trenchant wit, and its fabulously diverse membership, . . . where else do you find words like dun used so naturally (and appropriately).
Frankly, I had never come across dun before. dalej42 dun taught me a new word. Truth is, that with every word I learn, I feel less and less like a dunce.
There. I’m dun.
[/Tangent]
UPDATE: I called in this evening, and the representative said that he could knock off $250 instantly. Unfortunately, that was the limit for his position. He did, however, say that if raised to a claim/dispute, a panel would review the case and potentially reduce the charges even further. They will contact me in the next few days. I’ll update this again when that happens.
I’d keep on them. They don’t really have an incentive to call you back, yeah? The “retroactive data plan” is absolutely the right move for them to make; you just need to get to someone capable of approving it.
These two sentences don’t make much sense together. If $175 is way too much for you, then how can $1000 be not a lot of money? (And is there anyone out there, who isn’t wealthy, who really thinks $1000 for one month’s phone bill “isn’t that much money”!? 
)
Im not sure if this was even an option for you ,but up here in Canada, people using the Iphone strictly as a phone and not a data device have to have the data part turned off by Rogers.
Its Jobs phone ,but at least with my IPAQ i can turn off the phone and enable wifi or vise versa. I think that would be the first hack that I looked for , if I pick up an Iphone.
Declan
All the apps I’ve found so far work on my Touch, unless they require a feature it doesn’t have, such as a camera or microphone. The amazingly cool Shazam application is an example of one that won’t work, because it requires a mic. (Shazam listens for a few seconds to music that’s playing, such as over your car radio or in the room you’re in, and identifies the artist and song.)
Pandora’s days are numbered, so I wouldn’t recommend making decisions based on assumptions of its availability.
My son showed me how that works! I thought at first I was being scammed, it seemed too slick. I was playing a CD with a bunch of obscure covers and the program was able to get the song title and the artist after a snippet of song played.
Man, that’s crazy. I’m pretty sure if you plead your case nicely they’ll reduce your bill quite a bit, at least the first time. The data doesn’t really cost them nearly that much once the infrastructure is there, the limits are most likely just to keep the limited bandwidth from getting pounded too much.
Keep us posted.
Yes, fairly often if you call with a weird *one time * new charge they’ll take it off, once as a courtesy. I assume you’re a good customer, etc.
FINAL UPDATE: Original amount owed: $1,019.92. Current amount owed: $182.20.
For those of you who have been following, this is a glorious occasion! The excess data charges were completely refunded. I hope that this thread can be a future reference for anyone that may find themselves in a predicament similar to the one I encountered.
Nice! How’d you swing that?
“Well, I’m not quite sure how to describe this visually, but I just witnessed someone UNshit themselves!” 
Congratulations!
Nice job!
The worst thing you can do with a big debt is not talk to the company about it. Seems this was well worth your time to contact them! Hell even if you had to wait on hold for 8hours and not go to work it would still be worth your time!
Nice but don’t let it happen again because they wont refund it a second time.