Remember the 90s when owning a cell phone was still just becoming popular, when it wasn’t considered a life requirement on par with breathing. The phones only had only one main capability making a phone call and recording voicemail. How that has changed first with the introduction of texting and then data services.

These features have helped evolve the way we communicate with each other, but they don’t come free. And most of the time I think we are okay with that if we want to use something we are willing to pay an appropriate price for it. Where at least I get a little miffed is when products and services are overly tied together.

A consumer recently wrote in about dissatisfaction with his iPhone. Well let me clarify the consumer wasn’t dissatisfied with his iPhone so much as he was tired of not being able to complete calls or use the data network. He was so fed up that they decided to switch back to his old smartphone, the one he stopped using two years ago when he got an iPhone.

When he contacted AT&T to make the switch, he told them he only wanted a voice plan, no more data. He was giving up on using it. The customer service representative said fine and changed his plan.

Then our consumer made what he didn’t know would be his mistake. He gave the customer service rep. the IMEI number to the phone so that the phone he was using matched the phone on his account.

He ends his call with customer service and minutes later receives a text message stating that his smartphone was active and a data plan is required and if omitted will be added to his account.

In September, AT&T started requiring all consumers who purchased a smartphone from them to add a data plan (minimum $30 per month) to their service. Now it appears that anyone who has a smartphone on the AT&T network must have at least a $30 per month data plan regardless of when they bought the smartphone or who they bought the smartphone from.

This is particularly annoying to the consumer who cancelled his older, cheaper data plan because of lack of service. It was his intent to make do with accessing the internet through the phone’s WiFi capability and if he ever really needed data to pay the per mb rate.

So the question has to be asked with WiFi capable smartphones out there should you be forced to sign up for a $30 per month data plan. Especially at a time when AT&T keeps suggesting it wants its customers to use less data.

Of course AT&T never said it wanted customers to give less money to them just use less of the services that the customers are paying for.