Anthropological Observations

I don't understand why it should be much more difficult to get a prepaid cellular data plan for Michelle's iPad in the US than it is in Mexico.

In Mexico, we gave cash to Telcel and they gave us a data plan. Due in part to our limited spanish, the process took two hours, but once it was set up, it worked for the rest of our stay. Having the data plan was very, very convenient.

In the US, we apparently have to get the plan through AT&T. They insist on having a credit card to pay for the plan, which is tolerable. They also insist that we enter a zip code and that the zip code matches the home address on the credit card. That's where it all falls apart, since as Canadians residing in Canada, we don't have a zip code.

Apparently one can sometimes get around this by purchasing a prepaid Visa gift card and supplying its number to AT&T's data plan registration form on the iPad. However, it's not always obvious which zip code to use. Probably that of the shopping mall where the Visa card was purchased, but maybe somewhere else.

It seems like a simple problem to solve:

• AT&T offers a service we want
• AT&T wants money for the service
• we want to give AT&T money and receive the service, but they refuse to take any form of payment that we can offer. Ideally, we would pay cash.

But apparently cash doesn't work in AT&T's brave new economy.