AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans

[Neil1138]

Won't be an option according to the story. (if you are talking about an iPhone.)

Umm no

It says iPad can, didn't see where iPhone could be (grandfathered). Any link I could send you would be specific to my bill so it wouldn't work for you. I'm not sure what that message means, keep trying a guess.

It clearly says:

Current smartphone customers are not required to switch to the new plans, but can choose to do so without a contract extension.

 

[Cougarcat]

Debating whether to stick with my $30 unlimited or drop to the $25 2GB. I guess it makes sense to drop down if I stay under 2GB 51% or more of the months I'm on the plan for, right? Also, what happens if I use 2.0001 GB? Would I get charged $35 for that month?

$10 for each additional GB, it says. So yes, you'd be charged $35.

 

[iMrNiceGuy0023]

damn...because i really want to get the new iphone but keep my $30 unlimited data. i really hope i will still be grandfathered in when i upgrade 🙁

Usually when you upgrade I think you have to choose the new plans. I guess AT&T wants to lower the bandwith on the network.

I'll just upgrade another phone in my family plan then swap sims

 

[F123D]

I can't imagine. They will say that if you want a subsidy on a new phone, you have to sign up for a qualifying contract... which will only be the new data plans. Maybe you could keep your grandfathered in rate if you find a new iPhone off of contract and simply transfer your service to the new phone? Could be worth it for all these people that are supposedly finding a way to use 5GB/month.

The article did note, "Everything launches on June 7, except for iPhone tethering -- it'll launch when OS 4 does. In the meantime, we're told users can sign up for the $30 plans both on their phones and iPads if they'd like to be grandfathered in."

So I'm assuming everyone who still has a $30 plan has the option to keep it and not have to switch? Even if they're upgrading phones/renewing contracts?

 

[secretanchitman]

Usually when you upgrade I think you have to choose the new plans. I guess AT&T wants to lower the bandwith on the network.

I'll just upgrade another phone in my family plan then swap sims

exactly what i plan on doing. my dad still uses his original iphone and he is letting me use his upgrade (he never uses data, doesnt want another phone, etc).

 

[realeric]

FAN discount won't be applicable to the new data plan of $15 or $25. The discount applies to any other items on the plan that are $30.00 or more. What a scam! 😡😡😡😡😡😡

 

[8CoreWhore]

Wtf????

This takes place June 7. What if a person orders before then and wants the $29 unlimited for iPad, but receives it after the 7th? Apple's site still shows $29 for unlimited data. I hope at&t knows what they are doing, remember how they always screw these things up? 😡

 

[iMrNiceGuy0023]

FAN discount won't be applicable to the new data plan of $15 or $25. The discount applies to any other items on the plan that are $30.00 or more. What a scam! 😡😡😡😡😡😡

I save $5-6 for my unlimited data with the fan discount on my family plan. So no need to change my plan. AT&T is trying to get us

 

[Daremo]

Long as iPad plan will still offer $30/unlimited, I think I'm good...

No sir. The iPad data plan is changing as well. $25 for 2GB.

 

[F123D]

Current smartphone customers are not required to switch to the new plans, but can choose to do so without a contract extension.

But what happens when everyone DOES EXTEND their contract when the new iphone comes out. Will we be forced into one of these two new plans? Or does grandfathered truly mean grandfathered and we can keep our current $30 data plan for as long as we choose to do so.

 

[Nebrie]

But what happens when everyone DOES EXTEND their contract when the new iphone comes out. Will we be forced into one of these two new plans? Or does grandfathered truly mean grandfathered and we can keep our current $30 data plan for as long as we choose to do so.

Grandfathered till the LTE network is ready. Conveniently, it would require dumping that plan and signing up for a new plan to get access to it. Sprint did this neat little trick recently with their new 4G network.

 

[MacRumors]

AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans



AT&T has announced details about iPhone tethering as well as new data plans for smartphone users.

Customers can pick the new data plan that best meets their needs – either a $15 per month entry plan or a $25 per month plan with 10 times more data. Current smartphone customers are not required to switch to the new plans, but can choose to do so without a contract extension.

The new plans kick in on June 7th and each plan includes unlimited access to AT&T Wi-Fi Hotspots. The newly announced data plans seem to replace the current $30/month unlimited and include:

Data Plus - 200 MB of data for $15/month. Additional 200MB for another $15.
DataPro - 2GB of data for $25/month. Additional 1 GB of data for $10.
Tethering - Additional $20/month for DataPro customers.

iPhone users are specifically mentioned as being supported by the Tethering option, and support will be deployed with the release of iPhone OS 4.0.

The press release seems to indicate that Tethering will only be allowed with the DataPro plan. This would mean that existing iPhone customers would have to replace their current $30/month unlimited plan with the $25/month 2GB plan in order to qualify for the $20/month tethering plan. In other words, existing iPhone users who wish to take advantage of tethering would find their data rates increasing from $30/month to $45/month ($25 + $20) and find themselves limited to 2GB of data. AT&T indicates that if you don't want tethering, you may keep the current $30/month unlimited rate.

Meanwhile, it seems new iPhone customers (after June 7th) will not be given the option for a $30/month unlimited plan, while existing customers are grandfathered in. AT&T states that 98% of their smartphone customers use less than 2GB of data per month.

Article Link: AT&T Announces iPhone Tethering and New Smartphone Data Plans

 

[smileyborg]

This is big news! I think overall, a good thing. There's no such thing as "unlimited" anyways (apparently your account gets flagged if it uses >5GB per month or so), so it's nice to see them acknowledge a real limit and a corresponding price (although, maybe it would be nice if it were a little cheaper...).

This might have something to do with AT&T getting competitive to prepare for other carriers getting the iPhone.

 

[pika2000]

Totally lame. I mean even 5GB is lame, considering some wireless carriers in other countries have a much higher cap than 5GB for their cheapest plan, but now 200MB/2GB? Are we going backwards? We're going from unlimited to 5GB to 2GB to 200MB. What's next? 1MB?

Content producers should be angry at AT&T, as this means less people would use services like streaming audio/video/podcast, online backup, VOIP, etc as all use data. Truly a way to discourage innovation.

I want to hear comments from the likes of Leo Laporte. I mean today, knowing that I have "unlimited data," I don't worry watching Twit Live streaming. If I'm a new customer with the new capped plans, I wouldn't dare to do video streaming at all.

Now, my question is, can people with existing $30 unlimited plan add the extra $20 for tethering? Supposedly it would be unlimited too then?

 

[tuna]

This might have something to do with AT&T getting competitive to prepare for other carriers getting the iPhone.

GOD I HOPE SO.

And hopefully you would fully be able to use a single iPhone on both AT&T and T-Mobile, and another iPhone model on both Verizon and Sprint.

 

[Lord Vader]

They are insane.

 

[pika2000]

This is big news! I think overall, a good thing. There's no such thing as "unlimited" anyways (apparently your account gets flagged if it uses >5GB per month or so), so it's nice to see them acknowledge a real limit and a corresponding price (although, maybe it would be nice if it were a little cheaper...).

This might have something to do with AT&T getting competitive to prepare for other carriers getting the iPhone.

I agree that there's no such thing as unlimited, but capping at 200MB/2GB is pathetic and only discourage innovation on the internet. People are just starting to upload videos, watch streaming videos, do VOIP, stream music, etc. Capping at a lowly 200MB/2GB will discourage all those, putting us back to only checking text emails on our smartphones. 5GB for the cheap plan and 15GB for the pro plan sounds more reasonable for me.

If AT&T is getting more "competitive," then they should bring more value to their customers. All they do now is saying a big FU to their customers.

 

[AllieNeko]

YIKES! I'm an Alltel customer who will become AT&T with unlimited data on an HTC Hero and a USB data card. Last month, though, I had a BlackBerry Tour MOST of the month, I got the HTC Hero at the end of the month. Here was my data usage:

BlackBerry: 815MB
Data Card: 49.6GB

The month before:

BlackBerry: 3.35GB
Data Card: 97.7GB

And one before that:

BlackBerry: 11.3GB
Data Card: 28.52GB

So yeah, 2GB smartphone caps and 5GB data card caps will NOT make me a happy camper when AT&T eventually takes over Alltel here...

 

[Nuvi]

These US data plans are CRAZY EXPENSIVE!!! It seems everything else except mobile carrier costs are cheaper in US then in Europe. I pay less then 10 € a month with unlimited data. Even more so my carrier supports data speeds up to 20 Mbits and I can tether as much as I like without paying any extra.

 

[pika2000]

The press release seems to indicate that Tethering will only be allowed with the DataPro plan. This would mean that existing iPhone customers would have to replace their current $30/month unlimited plan with the $25/month 2GB plan in order to qualify for the $20/month tethering plan. In other words, existing iPhone users who wish to take advantage of tethering would find their data rates increasing from $30/month to $45/month ($25 + $20) and find themselves limited to 2GB of data. AT&T indicates that if you don't want tethering, you may keep the current $30/month unlimited rate.

Oh F@#K. Anybody knows when the AT&T ver of Nexus One will get 2.2?

 

[smileyborg]

Totally lame. I mean even 5GB is lame, considering some wireless carriers in other countries have a much higher cap than 5GB for their cheapest plan, but now 200MB/2GB? Are we going backwards? We're going from unlimited to 5GB to 2GB to 200MB. What's next? 1MB?

AT&T says 65% of its smartphone customers use less than 200 MB a month, and 98% use less than 2 GB. [Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-06-02-att-smartphone_N.htm]

With that in mind, and considering the data use of the 5 iPhones in my family, this move makes sense. 2 of the 5 would be fine with 200MB/month, and the other 3 (myself included) would be fine with 2GB/month...the highest usage any one of us has had from past usage history is about 1GB/month. And that's a lot of data for an iPhone, especially when you work on WiFi networks when available!

The 2GB plan will be a bit constraining with tethering, though...data will go much faster when your MacBook/etc is hooked in.

Obviously, there's no way AT&T or anyone else will allow unlimited data AND tethering...even for $30+$20 a month.

 

[arn]

I 5GB for the cheap plan and 15GB for the pro plan sounds more reasonable for me.

How much data do you use in a month on your iPhone?

According to AT&T 65% use less than 200MB and 98% use less than 2GB. Meanwhile, you are just pulling numbers out of thin air and saying they "sound reasonable" to you.

My usage on my iPhone for the past few months ranges from 200-400MB/month.

arn

 

[macduke]

Even though my history for the last six months shows a peak of 687mb and an average of 399mb. What sucks is I believe my FAN discount through school is $5.40. So my bill would actually go up 40 cents and I would lose out on a bunch of gigabytes?

Here is the deal: I've got some sort of psychological hangup with the unlimited data. I'm used to it, I don't have to think twice before watching a movie or whatever. Even if I go down to a 2gb plan, I know it will still put a little bug into me every time I go to use the internet on 3g. Call me crazy (my wife usually does), but this is a problem for me. It's all in my head though. Bah!

But I suppose I can keep my current plan even after upgrading for sure? So no money saved here. Wife might actually get an iPhone now with $15/mo plan.

Now that we know we have to downgrade to the 2gb plan to add the $20 tethering, it kind of takes the wind out of that lower price. 2gb of data on my MBP goes a lot faster. $10 or $15 would be a lot better as we're still taking from the same limited, 2gb pool that we already have access to and are paying for. I wouldn't be surprised to see the government investigate this crap one of these days. If we're paying for 2gb, then we should be able to shove that 2gb wherever we want it. Or at the VERY least, throw in an extra gb or two. That's $20 extra bucks for nothing except switching destinations!

If $20 tethering connected to WIFI iPads, then I would sign up right away! Apple needs to bring bluetooth tethering receiving to the iPad 4.1/2 software update. Does anyone know if jailbreak would allow for bluetooth pairing to iPhone? My iPad is jailbroken, but I don't want to jb my iPhone. I'd pay for the tethering on my iPhone and shoot it to iPad.

 

[Chwisch87]

Well see what Verizon, and Sprints with android phones and 2.2 response will be.

 

[mosx]

Good job AT&T. You found a new way to screw people over.

I bit the bullet and got the iPhone 3G S at Walmart because of the $97 price tag. It also allowed me to get in before the new $325 ETF and kept me at 3.1.3 so I can use MY iPhone how I wish.

But these new plans are even worse than the $325 ETF.

$15 for 200MB? Really? 200MB is nothing. That data plan is pure profit for AT&T. Especially when those few poor souls happen to go over 200MB.

Even 2GB at $25 is pure profit. 2GB of data, these days, is nothing. The fact that AT&T is offering 10x the data for only a few dollars more should tell everyone just how little it costs AT&T to actually deliver that bandwidth to you and how that $15 or $25 is essentially pure profit.

Last I checked, AT&T pulled in about $2.5b in profits the first quarter of this year and their operating costs are down.

So, rather than trying to extract more money from customers, why not use some of that extra cash to make your network better? It wouldn't please shareholders. But honestly, shareholders of any company are the scum of the Earth because they only care about profit and not about actual customer satisfaction. Take some of that money and make your network better. Don't slap expensive restrictions on everyone. Upgrade. Compete.

Oh wait, thanks to the previous administration, we have no competition 🙄 They allowed everyone to buy each other up and we went from dozens of wireless carriers to just a handful now.