UPDATE 4:Hey everyone, if my article has helped ya any and want to help me buy my Mac Mini that I need, you can donate to my new paypal! I made a tiny url of it. http://tinyurl.com/donatealan or just send me whatever to my paypal, my email for paypal is alan@leimobile.com
LEI Mobile is the new Limited Edition iPhone. We announced our move to LEIMobile.com back in January. That’s why we don’t update this site anymore.
Oh, and download the LEI Mobile app from the App Store or Cydia!
Sorry for the commercial there, lol. Just sayin. The vast majority of our readers have already moved there, but I know there are still some of you that don’t know yet.
Well, again, if ya wanna help me buy a Mac Mini, you can donate to me at my PayPal:
alan@leimobile.com
Thanks guys!
Glad my article could help!
UPDATE 3: I have fixed the first link. I will see what is going on with the second, it just re-routes you to one of my posts, don’t use it.
UPDATE 2: Alright everyone, this is important. I have created a signed Mobile Configuration file and have also made a signed .ipcc file for all of you on AT&T. Enjoy!
Carrier Update, download, then apply in iTunes. This is exclusively for AT&T GoPhone customers
Mobile Configuration Profile, just open the Link in Safari by taping here, then install.
If the mobile configuration file I made doesn’t install right away, try my .ipcc. Also, tell me about any issues you may encounter and I will try to see what’s up.
Also, if you have any other carrier that isn’t AT&T, then continue using the external website I provided. Enjoy!
(These downloads are exclusively from Limited Edition iPhone, do not redistribute without permission, and only link to this page or to the file itself.)
UPDATE 1: Hey guys, it seems that our friends at Gizmodo have also found this to be an issue. Well, they have not found a solution, lucky for you, we are freaking monsters up here at Limited Edition iPhone, and I found a workaround in like 60 seconds, so prepaid gophone customers, I’ve got your backs! Oh, and AT&T… F*ck you! Apple, dump them, they are not helping you, but rather dragging you down and giving you a bad name.
Today I received a text message from AT&T to tell me about the 3.0 update on Wednesday, well my first reaction was, how the hell do they know that I have an iPhone if I didn’t activate my service on an iPhone (originally), but Mike said that possibly due to my IMEI, they knew I was on an iPhone 3G. Let me tell you a little story.
Well when I updated to 3.0 (7A341) on Tuesday morning, everything seemed 100% fine. Activation went through perfectly and sync went great as well.
Well, I went to bed and when I woke up Wednesday morning, I decided that I wanted to check my email and weather. So I tried and it gave me an error that read “Could not activate cellular data network: you are not subscribed to a cellular data service”.
Weird huh? Well I though, oh maybe I should reset all network settings, so I did, but to my surprise, it had no effect! So then I decided that maybe Apple had screwed up and accidentally typed in the wrong APN, since the new bundle was AT&T 4.0, instead of the previous AT&T 3.5. So I decided it was time to correct their issue. Little did I know back then that this was 100% intentional. Which AT&T now confirmed was intentional to get prepaid customers to switch to a post paid plan.
My method does not require a jailbreak. I am not jailbroken right now as there will be no public jailbreak until after 3.0 is released to the masses. I made a mobile configuration file for my iPhone 3G in order to change my APN. It is much safer than a custom .ipcc or a manual change. (due to human error of course, and its easier to apply, no iTunes needed to apply it.)
So what you need to do is download a program called “iPhone Configuration Utility”. Its a free download from Apple.com.
There is a very serious issue though. It seems that Apple has not updated their utility so that you can connect an iPhone 3.0 device to it and apply a configuration file directly via USB. You can however email it to yourself and then tap on it on your iPhone to activate and install the new configuration file.
Set the APN to:
APN: wap.cingular
Username: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM
Password: CINGULAR1
Now export the .mobileconfig file via an e-mail and email it to yourself. Now go to your Mail application on your iPhone and open the message you mailed yourself, now, tap on the attachment and install the file!
Or, I guess, if you want… you can go to a website and bypass the long installation/creation process explained by my previous method. Just go to
http://www.unlockit.co.nz/#_Custom
on your iPhone, now just enter the APN data that I provided above where the website indicates. Just copy and paste it in. (or you can tap on the selector, the thing that says “blank”, the thing that is under the APN inputs, and select your carrier.) Now just tap on “create custom profile” and then it will exit Safari, and take you to the settings application. Now just tap on “install” and you are done. (Installing a profile may take up to 30 seconds, do not exit the menu until it is done installing or you will have a very corrupted carrier file.
There you go! Now you have full 3G and EDGE capabilities. This took me about a minute to figure out that it was an issue with the APN information Apple provided in the AT&T 4.0 bundle. So I used a method that I used to use to prevent data usage and just did the opposite and re-enabled data usage.
This is 100% safe! Just make sure you type the APN correctly and you should be fine. Just reboot after you have done this if you still don’t have a connection. I didn’t need to reboot, but you know, just in case. Don’t forget to spread the word and tell everybody you know that has a GoPhone Prepaid iPhone so that they can have uninterrupted service.
Alan can I do this trick to the 2 iPhones I have if I’m already locked in a 2 year contract and just call them up and tell them I’m trying to save money and I’ll be using 2 reg flip phones and get the unlimited media net package for 15 dollers that covers both my phones or how would I go about doing this
idol! it worked.
iphone 2g 8gb. using att unli data plan.
Hi Britt and Eric-
Can you tell me if ATT caught your incorrect data plan in their “automatic” sweeps of imei #s and had the iphone data plans automatically added back? I have changed my apn settings, but took my phone off att and put in a dumb phone- then after everything was set I have put my chip in an old smartphone. When I made the initial changes I was told by CSR that if I put the chip back into my iphone the $30 plan would be added back on without my permission. What happened to yours? Currently I have the $10.00 family data.
I’ve been using this for several months. No problems from AT&T…
hi. mine stopped working today
Espectacular!!
Thanks a lot!!
Thanks, Solved my problem….
Fantastic! It worked!
I used the iphone configuration utility but used your settings and it worked great. Thank you so much.
This worked fantastically, thank’s for the workaround! Silly AT&T trying to get some of us to go post-paid. But, they shouldn’t gripe. They are probably going to end up making more money off of Pay-As-You-Go iPhone customers anyways.
Thanks! worked like a charm. I phone… data network on Edge, SKYPE, Google Voice… I love it!!!
Will this work on a 2G iPhone, 3.1.2 on a GoPhone prepaid plan?
worked like a champ!!! thanks!!
Anyone else getting texts and emails from ATT all of a sudden saying your using the wrong plan for iPhone? Just started today have been using this fox for about 6months!!!
yeah, I have the same issue from today.
I just installed the new profile on my 3GS and get no acknowledgment on the phone of either Edge or 3G service.
Do I need to go purchase one of the prepaid data packages available from ATT?
I am getting a “profile could not be validated profile is missing identifier”. Does anyone know what that means? thanks
Too bad, I think AT&T disable this already. It does not work anymore!!
Dear ebc, can you confirm if you are able to access the internet with ATT Prepaid, since you stated that this workaround is not working any more. Any new workaround? Thanks.
works great! thank you!
Dear Jean, can you confirm if you are able to access the internet with ATT Prepaid, since ebc is stating that this workaround is not working any more. Thanks.
Ok first off, i have a regular 15 dollar data plan with att. I recieved several texts from att that i wason the wrong plan. I used the apn changer and voila! No more texts.
But……. Will i still get charged per kb? Does anyone know anybody who has been charge per kb even if they have ulimited data? Also when i run apn, i get WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM. I have to change the @ to @ symbol then it works. Anybody have same issue?
Guys, can you confirm the workaround continues to work on date since ebc stated above (on Jan 22) that it does not work any more? If not working, is there a new workaround to use the data plan on ATT Prepaid? Thanks.
yes it works. You may have to go in and change the APN from phone to wap.cingular
ALERT: I’ve been using this method for a couple months without a hitch, but today I got an email and text message that I needed to upgrade my data plan.
Help?
hi, so did you find a remedy to keep this working? thanks
I got a new work Blackberry Bold. I tried the above. It works for a time but then I get the old cannot connect to server type messages again. It seems like it happens when I enable airplane mode and then come out of airplane mode. Enabling the wifi also seems to dump me off the data network. My take away after trying for 3 days: it works intermittently but its not a robust solution.
Hm, still seems to work fine for me. Has anyone noticed that sometimes you can’t send or recieve MMS messages on your phone after the workaround? I mean, the phone says they send, but the people don’t actually recieve them, same goes if someone is sending you a picture message.
Still works like a charm with GOPhone
any harm in upgrading to the new software 3.1.3 ??????
naw, I’m pretty sure this works outside of firmware updates
I am travelling to the US in 3 weeks from AU. I have an unlocked iPhone 3G on latest firmware. I am looking at getting a PrePaid GoPhone subscription with AT&T for my visit. I am wondering if I need to get the $19.99 100MB data plan also to get this to work or dont need data plan at all and this will work??
ok,
i know this seems redundant…
BUT as of today MARCH 15, 2010
does this still work, and w/ 3.1.3?
sorry and thanks
yes it works. everytime it stop working i put my att sim in a non iphone unit then call att rep and tell them it stopped working.
then when it works i put it back to my iphone!
I did it today and it worked like a charm. Only took 5 min if that
Thanks for the helpful instructions.
I’ve loaded the .ipcc linked above and verified the APN matches the post. I have signal bars and the “3G” in the upper left, but I keep getting:
“Safari cannot open the page because it is not connected to the internet.”
I am able to connect through WiFi, but when I turn it off, I get the error message. Every time I try, 22kB is deducted from my account.
Any help is appreciated.
dave w. I am having the same problem as you. Mine was working for several weeks now, but now it stopped working today and says.
“Safari cannot open the page because it is not connected to the internet.”
Nice to know I’m not alone, but sorry you are having trouble too Tyler. Some other things I have tried and still get the “not connected to the internet”:
-generating and loading the APN through the iphone
-manually typing the APN information
-resetting network connections
-reloading the APN profile by ipcc and the generator
-rebooting after every attempt listed above
-twice
-put another pre-paid SIM (that does connect) in my iphone
-put an iphone data plan SIM (that does connect) in my iphone
The odd thing is, when I put my SIM in the other iphone, it can connect to the internet; which leads me to believe there is something off with my phone (and not the SIM or data plan).
Once again, any help is appreciated and thanks for your time.
Tyler, this worked for me, so I hope it works for you too.
I tried hitting “Reset Settings” in the
Settings->General->Network->Cellular Data
but I guess I was supposed to be in
Settings->General->Reset->Reset Network Settings
This caused a reboot and wiped all my wifi passwords but now I can connect via 3G and do not get the safari error. I have reconnected to one wifi spot and things still look ok. I do not know if anything else has been cleared, but resetting something is a minor hassle if it means getting data. Hope you have similar results.
im having trouble understanding this. so by doing what you said i can use the web without needing a data plan? and without getting charge fo being on the web using up KB’s (.02 cents a KB) with a wifi connection??
You first need to subscribe to ATT’s data plan with your Prepaid Go Phone – I believe that is 19.95. Once you have the data plan and an iPhone, you need to carry out the adjustments mentioned in this post to acquire access to the internet. At the moment, even if you have paid for the data plan as above, ATT does not allow access to iPhones to connect to the internet. Therefore, what this forum is doing is suggesting a way out to connect to the internet (after you have subscribed to the data plan from ATT). Hope this clarifies.
Hello Guys
Do u konw ir works with 3Gs with 3.1.3 Version?
Thanks
Rob
Does changing the APN settings still work? This thread is almost a month old.
Im heading over there in 2 weeks n just wanna make sure my iphone will get data loving
Mine is still going strong.
Just installed 4.o beta 2.
Installing the ATT ipcc hack from benm (and custom benm ipcc) don’t work. I see the tethering option in networking, and settings shows that the profile is installed, but it refuses to let me on the internet. Anyone else have a similar problem?
I think I’m going to do this next week. I’m so sick of paying $80 / month for crappy service!!
I recently got a 3.1.3 iphone 3G. I had a 2G iphone with $15 unlimited data. Changing the APN settings on the 3G after I moved over my Sim worked like a charm. However about 3 a.m. that same night I got a couple texts from AT&T and the automatically added an iphone 3G $30 data plan to my account. I popped my Sim in and old phone and had them remove the plan. Now I’m wondering how long from the moment I put it back in the iphone I’ll have until auto-plan strikes again. Is there any x-factor here. 2G iphone lasted for months without issue, 3G lasted hours. Any advice or thoughts would be helpful.
Chris: the issue discussed here concerns iPhones used with prepaid service, which has no “legal” iPhone data options. It sounds like you have a regular iPhone plan, which is why (if I understand correctly) AT&T upgraded you from 2G to 3G service.
1st gen Iphone, 3.12 firmware and it works flawlessly. Thanks for the hack.
I did this on on my Iphone 3G and it worked like a charm. My Iphone 3G has a phone and standard PDA Data Plan.
I tried loading on my Iphone 2G ( 1 st Gen Iphone) with a freind’s at&t phone with a voice only plan ( no Data Plan) and when I put the chip in and started the Iphone 2G, it brought to the inital menu asking for Itunes to be plugged in. When I put the Iphone 2G in the Itunes, it started going through standard Iphone turn on wanting to add the Iphone initiation and standard data plan.
Does this work with regular at&t voice phone plans by just moving the chip ???
Did you try adding a data plan before connecting to iTunes? I paid $5 to add 1MB of data service first, and then iTunes initiated just fine.
Thank you so much!! I did this on a 1st gen iphone and it is working great! Since I make so few calls, I instead use up my pay-as-you-go balance for text messaging and Edge data service. I am SO happy!!
My question is – now that I’ve got my phone working perfectly with my pay-as-you-go plan, can I install the 3.1 update WITHOUT compromising the setup with my pay-as-you-go plan? The plan is king for me so I will stick with 3.0 if I have to …
Hey everyone, if my article has helped ya any and want to help me buy my Mac Mini that I need, you can donate to my new paypal! I made a tiny url of it. http://tinyurl.com/donatealan or just send me whatever to my paypal, my email for paypal is alan@leimobile.com
LEI Mobile is the new Limited Edition iPhone. We announced our move to LEIMobile.com back in January. That’s why we don’t update this site anymore.
Oh, and download the LEI Mobile app from the App Store or Cydia!
Sorry for the commercial there, lol. Just sayin. The vast majority of our readers have already moved there, but I know there are still some of you that don’t know yet.
Well, again, if ya wanna help me buy a Mac Mini, you can donate to me at my PayPal:
Alan@leimobile.com
Thanks guys!
Glad my article could help!
can i update to 3.1.2 or whatever the newest update is still running 3.1 like a charm should i mess with perfection. Alan hope u got my pay pal under A.K.A of course. Thanks Always.
Worked a treat excellent
Hey everyone, I have an iPhone on a family plan with the basic 10 dollar unlimited data plan. I just upgraded to os4.0 and was wondering why this does not work. I’m not on a gophone plan. I have a contract just no iPhone data plan because they no longer offer unlimited to iPhone users
Hey everyone, I have an iPhone on a family plan with the basic 10 dollar unlimited data plan. I just upgraded to os4.0 and was wondering why this does not work. I’m not on a gophone plan. I have a contract just no iPhone data plan because they no longer offer unlimited to iPhone users. Is anyone in my boat
Paul: What kind of iphone did you have that you were able to use the basic data plan without getting busted and automatically upgraded. Since you have to have a 3G to even install the 4.0 firmware I sounds like you were able to get around the $30 data plan in the past.
Either way a visit to http://www.unlockit.co.nz/unlockit/?page_id=61
and following the instructions (easy) to change your APN should allow you to access data again. Please post back with info about your phone and previous firmware.
First of all this is awesome, thank you SO much for creating this site, and I really hope it works!
I have a iphone 3g- version 3.1.3
I have an att go phone prepaid plan and the 100MB data prepaid as well
I installed the Disable Data
Then installed the Custom APN
Then tried
1. keeping both
2. going to profile and removing the disable data (which I thought you’re supposed to do?)
3. powering off and restarting
..and it still comes up with the error message “you are not subscribed to a cellular data service”
Can anyone pretty please tell me what I’m still doing wrong? I want this to work so badly!
Thank you!
hi everyone! I have been an AT&T gophone prepaid service for more than a year now. A couple of months ago I purchased a second hand iphone 3GS 8gb. Everything works except for the data plan. I have read this thread but i didnt see anyoone asking about iphones on 3GS. Everyone is on 3G. Pardon my ignorance if there’s no technical difference in both with regards to the process of activating the data service. My question is will the same process work on an iphone 3GS?
Thanks in advance
You all are better off jailbreaking and unlocking your iPhones and using them on T-Mobiles network. This so-called fix is still too damn buggy and unreliable. What if you had a real emergency or let’s say you depend heavily on your phone to work reliably? This is NO FIX, this is trouble waiting to happen!
Your reply is complete nonsense. You have no facts to back up what you are saying. MOST of us have been using this fix for over a year with no problems. Who says it’s “buggy” and “unreliable”? You are just making that up. You have obviously never tried this. Jailbreaking is great, but every time a new version of SW comes our you can’t upgrade until someone figures out how to jailbreak the new version (if they figure it out). In my mind THAT is NO FIX.
@Paul: I’m in the same boat as you I have an unused iPhone 3GS jailbroken and unlocked on 4.0.1 that I wanna to my account with a basic unlimited data (15.00/10.00) plan since they no longer offer unlimited data on iPhones any advice or instructions would be greatly appreciated. thnks in advance.