AT&T rolling back upgrade eligibility on the eve of iPhone 4 announcement

With the possible announcement of a Verizon iPhone coming tomorrow, AT&T might be preparing for the competition by rolling back customers upgrade eligibility. In a world where having the latest iPhone is pretty big bragging rights, there’s no doubt that AT&T would be wise to let people upgrade early and lock them into new contracts.

Our helpful tipster, along with some friends, decided to check their eligibility and have noticed that their previous upgrade-eligibility date is in fact earlier than was previously being announced by AT&T. In the first case, it was originally stated that @pdparticle wouldn’t be able to update until September, but after calling again today, he found out that he was eligible for upgrade. Furthermore, @lilwhitebear was originally only allowed to upgrade in December, and now is eligible for upgrade, and @Thetechreviewer is now eligible to upgrade despite being told earlier that he’d have to wait until the end of Decemeber.

Does this mean that AT&T is gearing up for some competition, or that they’re trying to get as many customers under contract as possible before people start finding other phones on other services?

If you want to check your eligibility, and you’re on the AT&T network, dial *639# and then wait for a text message.

Thanks goes out to @Pdparticle for the tip.

Joshua is the Content Marketing Manager at BuySellAds. He’s also the founder of Macgasm.net. And since all that doesn’t quite give him enough content to wrangle, he’s also a technology journalist in his spare time, with bylines at PCWorld, Macworld… Full Bio