AT&T Ends Data Throttling for Unlimited Elite Customers, Adds 40GB Hotspot Data and 4K HBO Max

[gsmornot]

I really dont know what I would have to do to use 100g of data on my phone in a month to need truly unlimited data. I have several devices I use throughout the day so my data is divided. iPhone, iPad (2), iMac. I am near wi-fi almost all the time. I guess this is not meant for me but who is using this much data and what are you doing? Watching video maybe? I know there are users out there that use the data and I‘m cool with it, just wondering how I could do it myself.

 

[macrumors_12345]

That is INSANE. I have just got a new plan in the UK. Iphone 12 over 24 months + Unlimited 5G data/texts/minutes. All taxes included £53/month (~$62). Y'all been ripped off over there.

Edit: and when it says unlimited- they really actually properly mean it.

I feel like my Unlimited Elite plan is a pretty good value at $33.75/mo.

 

[greg624]

This is their way of competing with T-Mobile. Magenta Max has already had this for a few months. And T-Mobile’s the only carrier with taxes and fees included in their pricing.

 

[tridley68]

They never should have been throttling in the first place unlimited is unlimited if that's what you are paying for

 

[coachgq]

I don't borrow unless absolutely necessary.

Silly at 0%. But agree with you if it’s costing you money to borrow money. Your strategy is good though. Keep it up. I’m not trolling, if it works for you and your happy, at the end of the day that’s all that matters!

 

[bushman4]

Service depends on where you use the service
This new unlimited Elite plan is a plus for people that tether and want HBOMAX
As for 5G at this point in time its almost worthless on all three carriers

 

[dsampley]

Does an iPad on the new unlimited elite get the same 4K streaming or is it stuck with 480p like today

 

[coachgq]

I don't.
Regardless of the interest being zero, the less I'm involuntarily tied to a company, the less they assault me with revision of terms/use of personal information/"new and improved and exciting" promotions/etc.
Pay once, and I'm done with their sales aggression

I don't.
Regardless of the interest being zero, the less I'm involuntarily tied to a company, the less they assault me with revision of terms/use of personal information/"new and improved and exciting" promotions/etc.
Pay once, and I'm done with their sales aggression.

I’m confused. Are you referring to your mobile carrier or your handset maker? Your mobile carrier will do all those things anyway. You pay them monthly and are voluntary tied to one or the other companies. If it’s your handset maker, you gave them cash up front and they don’t care anymore. They wouldn’t care where you paid all now or broke it up over 24/30.

 

[coachgq]

Same.
I don't care what promotions they're running (0% is never zero percent; the consumer becomes the merchandise at that point); I don't like owing anyone anything if I can afford to buy it and get the heck out of the store.

Can you explain how 0% is never 0 percent? I don’t get that.

 

[T5BRICK]

I’ll take the extra speed and 10GB of hotspot data. And while I do appreciate the competition and the benifits to consumers, I don’t even consider T-Mobile as an option. I had them for a couple years. Occasionally I’d get 40-50Mb/s download on their network, but most other times it was a sub 5Mb/s download and sub 1Mb/s upload OR it said I had full coverage but when I went to use the network it just didn’t work.

I live about 15 miles south of Portland. Verizon and AT&T work great here.

 

[jntdroid]

I’ll take the extra speed and 10GB of hotspot data. And while I do appreciate the competition and the benifits to consumers, I don’t even consider T-Mobile as an option. I had them for a couple years. Occasionally I’d get 40-50Mb/s download on their network, but most other times it was a sub 5Mb/s download and sub 1Mb/s upload OR it said I had full coverage but when I went to use the network it just didn’t work.

I live about 15 miles south of Portland. Verizon and AT&T work great here.

Ditto with T-Mobile. I love how they disrupted things there for a couple of years. And they're significantly better than they used to be. But there are still some pretty big coverage gaps outside of the big cities and major highways.

 

[jntdroid]

I prefer not to owe anyone. I was raised to pay cash and walk. It may not be to the liking of many others here but it works for me.

Amen.

 

[jntdroid]

That's throwing away at least 3% yearly, or more like 15%, depending on how you look at the discount rate.

That's not necessarily the case if you take good care of your device and resell it at a good value (not just a trade-in, but a legit sale to someone else, like through Swappa or locally or something like that). This is especially true for iPhones that hold their value so much more than other OEM's devices.

 

[McKodiak]

What will Verizon’s move be? How long until they make it? I have only one line. Might need to switch.

 

[317342]

I prefer not to owe anyone. I was raised to pay cash and walk. It may not be to the liking of many others here but it works for me.

Same. I'd rather have it paid off 100% right away and have a lower monthly bill.

 

[iF34R]

I'll see what Verizon does. This might be the thing that pushes me over to ATT.

 

[Alan Wynn]

That's not necessarily the case if you take good care of your device and resell it at a good value (not just a trade-in, but a legit sale to someone else, like through Swappa or locally or something like that).

Why not? At any point you can pay off the balance and sell your device.

This is especially true for iPhones that hold their value so much more than other OEM's devices.

Not sure how the resale value affects whether taking a no interest payment plan is worth it or not.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Same. I'd rather have it paid off 100% right away and have a lower monthly bill.

If you have the money to pay off the phone, put it into an interest bearing account and set it to auto pay. No cost to do that and you have access to the cash balance in case of an emergency.

 

[Shirasaki]

Why? You don’t like borrowing money at 0%?

There is no point to borrow money if you can pay in full. Financing is a long dreaded experience and breaks hard if something unexpected happen. (Such as pandemic)

Good for people who can manage it, but I’m still against financing anything other than house and maybe a car unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

[Shirasaki]

40GB tethered doesn’t sound too attractive to me especially for such an expensive plan.

Currently in Australia, Telstra doesn’t offer any “unlimited” plan but they don’t care how you use your data within the allowance. 80GB plan can be used for half on mobile half tether, or 80GB tether and 0 on mobile. They don’t care. They do throttle (literally) your speed to 1.5Mbps after allowance so the experience drops significantly. AT&T should’ve at least included more data for tethering considering the price. But that’s just me relying on tethering half the time.

 

[tobybrut]

I just checked by logging into ATT's website but it doesn't look like their plan has been updated yet. I have four phones on the Unlimited Elite Plan, but it still says 100GB limit before potential throttling as well as 30GB of tethering. Perhaps it will take a few days for this to update.

It's a good deal, especially for the 4K HBO Max, though I wonder how long that's going to last now that Warner has basically been sold to Discovery. That sale is going to take about a year to finalize, but do we lose free HBO Max then? They haven't really said what the Warner sale is going to do with our cell phone plans.

 

[justin0712]

That is INSANE. I have just got a new plan in the UK. Iphone 12 over 24 months + Unlimited 5G data/texts/minutes. All taxes included £53/month (~$62). Y'all been ripped off over there.

Edit: and when it says unlimited- they really actually properly mean it.

Since the United States is much much much much larger that means the infrastructure is going to have to cover an area quadruple the size of the UK. I would imagine we pay a hefty price since we are covering more land and more people. I would not be opposed to the cost being lower, but we had that in the past with other carriers. You get what you pay for.

Sprint used to be the low cost carrier but lacked on coverage outside of Interstates and major cities. While you could get away cheaper it would have suffered in coverage.

AT&T/Verizon have always been more expensive but have had the coverage to back it up. Though Verizon seems to be encountering massive congestion in many areas with its bet on C Band.

T-Mobile, well, they are making some good progress with coverage since the buyout of Sprint while remaining low to mid cost. I expect that to change in a few years.

 

[donguevas]

A lousy deal?!? Realistically, it's the 12GB plan you're getting a lousy deal on...

You could do Elite for $130 (with a FAN), so for $24 more a month, you can have actual unlimited instead of 12GB, plus 40GB of hotspot per phone, plus HBO Max. That's basically a pittance for what you get. That's not even factoring in higher priority data and higher-quality streaming. (If you don't have a FAN, figure $1.25 more a month to join AARP).

You might not have a need for that plan, but you seemed to wish it was cheaper which implied that you wanted it.

Do you work for ATT? Because you are shilling pretty hard for them.

I worked for Bell South Mobility and then the combined on a deal with SBC to form Cingular Wireless, then they bought AT&T Wireless, and then years later SBC bought out Bell South and rebranded themselves as ATT.

ATT Wireless had better plans than Cingular but they forced the customers over and most lost all the perks they had earned over the years.

I transferred to Bell South Corporate from Cingular and then SBC took over, as mentioned above, and got rid of all the employee perls(pensions and negotiated items).

ATT had a 30 dollar a month unlimted plan but when people started to use it they start throttling data with lame excuses and god forbid you tether. They had to pay a 60 million dollar fine for it.

And not everyone knows what a FAN is(foundation account number), it is internal jargon. It is a discount code and most average 8-12%. I am a senior tech at Apple and I could get a 23% discount but when I left that **** show in 2015 because they screwed me on early retirement I moved my business to Tmobile and my Tmobile bill is still cheaper than it was with my att 50% FAN discount.

The AARP discount is only 10% of certain services. Like the primary line on the account and any features tied to it. The only time it kicks is 10 bucks a month per line on the Elite account. So you really do not save much either way.

 

[donguevas]

Since the United States is much much much much larger that means the infrastructure is going to have to cover an area quadruple the size of the UK. I would imagine we pay a hefty price since we are covering more land and more people. I would not be opposed to the cost being lower, but we had that in the past with other carriers. You get what you pay for.

Sprint used to be the low cost carrier but lacked on coverage outside of Interstates and major cities. While you could get away cheaper it would have suffered in coverage.

AT&T/Verizon have always been more expensive but have had the coverage to back it up. Though Verizon seems to be encountering massive congestion in many areas with its bet on C Band.

T-Mobile, well, they are making some good progress with coverage since the buyout of Sprint while remaining low to mid cost. I expect that to change in a few years.

Actually ATT and Verizon were given government money to build out fiber and network infrascture, and well, they just kept the money because there was no oversight.

Look at your cell phone bell, there is a tax built into for telcos. ATT passes the charge along to the customer and then does not use the money to do jack.

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www.att.com

 

[Ahmamies]

That is INSANE. I have just got a new plan in the UK. Iphone 12 over 24 months + Unlimited 5G data/texts/minutes. All taxes included £53/month (~$62). Y'all been ripped off over there.

Edit: and when it says unlimited- they really actually properly mean it.

I am still using Xs Max so 4G for me; 300Mbps unlimited plan (no data cap, no throttling, unlimited calls and texts) about 23 USD per month. I live in one of those Nordic socialist countries 😉