It is officially scheduled for release tomorrow. It should be available on the website then, and you might not find it in stores till the first of August or so, but it could be sooner. As for paying for the phone, I'm not sure, but I think if you are a certain type of long-time customer they might do that for you, otherwise you have to pay for it up front. Again, I could be wrong about this, and if I am then everybody just pays for it up front.