After a couple months of service, and getting charged data, I called up ATT and found out that I was supposed to be part of the rare class that can get a BB data exclusion applied to my account. They reversed all charges, and let's see whether they charge me again in the next month's bill. If it's a recurring problem where ATT's billing is not in line with their technology for forcing all PDAs into a data plan, then I'll eventually buy a non-PDA phone.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Prashant