AT&T Raising Price of Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans to $45 Per Month

[bunnicula]

Grandfathered is yet another word which companies have decided to change the meaning of in order to suit their purpose. It's much like the word "unlimited" which they modified to mean unlimited until they decide it isn't any longer.

Grandfathered actually means that they cannot kick you off this plan as long as they are still offering this plan. It does not say that the plan won't change in minor ways or that the rates won't go up.

People misunderstand. It's not like a rent-controlled apartment. It's a utility. Utilities raise rates.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Grandfathered actually means that they cannot kick you off this plan as long as they are still offering this plan. It does not say that the plan won't change in minor ways or that the rates won't go up.

People misunderstand. It's not like a rent-controlled apartment. It's a utility. Utilities raise rates.

The user agreement clearly states this. Most just fail to read it and get mad instead.

 

[bunnicula]

The user agreement clearly states this. Most just fail to read it and get mad instead.

You are correct.

I think that, for a lot of folks, having that original "unlimited" plan is a badge of honor. I know I hung onto it about a year longer than I should have. I was being stubborn. But, ultimately, I think it will be phased out when enough people leave the plan.... they need the justification for the public ("Only 10% of all of our users were on the plan" or the like) and that plan will go the way of the dodo.

 

[az431]

This is a class-action lawsuit. How can you modify a "grandfathered" plan?

Grandfathered doesn't mean the price is frozen for eternity. It's not like a rent controlled apartment. Any in any case, the term "grandfathered" doesn't appear anywhere in the contract.

What AT&T did is retain unlimited data plans for those who purchased them before they were phased out. That's it.

 

[albebaubles]

I get throttled monthly and am nowhere near 300gb - which is ridiculous btw. How is it even possible to use 300gb a month? Do you stream TV on your phone for a living? LOL...

I live in a small town -- broadband internet here maxes out at 20MBPS, less than my cell phone and would cost $600/month.

So, I run my entire house off two iPhones connected to a load balancing router.

 

[itguy06]

The plan was originally sold unlimited with no caps and best speed possible. The throttling was added once they knew can get away with doing.

No it wasn't. Wireless carriers never make speed guarantees.

 

[gavroche]

Your line of thinking is what companies love, it is what allowed these companies to generate increasing profits every year. Are you actually advocating that businesses are allowed to raise prices all the time regardless of reasons? That's how health care insurance got to where it is now with hospitals charging 10K for a simple IV injection where they actually cost less than a dollar. I suggest you check their sheets, if the inflation was a problem, their expenses would've jump higher to match, they don't and sometime, they're lower. Also, not all expenses increase in cost ever year; such as bandwidth costs (wired transfer between each endpoint) is constantly dropping for the past few decades. Radiowave spectrum is not unlimited, so the expense is in adding more towers but the long run is cheaper with more customers. So, it is not as simple as you make it sound and no, businesses do not increase prices all the time for inflation, they often do it for different reasons, especially if they're for-profit with shareholders.

Inflation has zero to do with this, they're not losing money, they have a different unlimited plan that has the same "unlimited" perk with slightly more limits (with more hidden fees) that the grandfathered plans don't have. If ATT can't afford the "inflation" and the expenses, they should not have an unlimited plan in the first place and they shouldn't have a cheaper one that is more customer-hostile than the said grandfathered plans.

Oh by the way, ATT is already been fined by the government about different actions they took against the grandfathered plans and FCC confirmed the methods they took before had nothing to do with network management but merely to enhance the revenue, just like what they're doing here. The only difference is, this is sadly legal.

They're not losing money on this, they're intentionally raising the price to get rid of the grandfathered members to switch to the other plans. That's just a business trick, it's a well known established process that works. Raise the price of a service plan to move everyone over to the cheaper but more limited plans. It has ZERO to do with inflation but a business decision made that's meant to generate more profits.

LOL. Just... wow.

 

[rolsskk]

Shame on you AT&T your greed will catch up with you some day.

Switch to a different plan then.

A. That thread is 10 pages long, and there are more than a dozen people that experienced problems.

Edit: My bad, I put the wrong link. https://forums.att.com/t5/Account-F...-data-vs-new-Unlimited-Plus-Plan/td-p/5102836 This is the link I was referring to.

B. No, actually there are becoming fewer and fewer people like me willing to absorb the price increase. Just look how many users in this very thread or the other one I posed are talking about switching to T-Mobile or somewhere else because of the price increases. They are LOSING customers by raising these prices, and the ones they keep are supposedly paying LESS than they were on their grandfathered plans. What an absolutely absurd claim to make.

C. Funny, that's the same tactic those 3 pro-AT&T users in that thread used! Called anyone who questioned AT&T a "tinfoil hat wearer". And now here we are again, being compared to a chemtrail believer because I have the audacity to question why AT&T has been trying to get RID of grandfathered in unlimited plans for years now? Absolutely hilarious.

B. Then why are you so obsessed with them then that you had to come here to create an account to complain about it?

C. What do you expect when you yell conspiracy - but have no idea what you're talking about?

It’s really not hard.
Company promises customer a deal if customer buys service from them.
Customer agrees.
Company tries to back out of deal.
Customer gets upset.

You may want to pick up a dictionary, this is not an “entitled” attitude, unless you mean people believe they should be entitled not to be lied to by companies. If ATT or whom ever makes a bad deal that’s on them, they should have to live with the consequences. You seem to think it’s perfectly ok for them to lie though. To me that seems to be a much bigger problem in America today, the attitude that corporations should have stronger rights than actual people.

And the company honored that deal for a while, and then they changed their offerings. Where are they trying to back out?

The plan was originally sold unlimited with no caps and best speed possible. The throttling was added once they knew can get away with doing.

Show me the documentation that said speed. All of the articles and ads I could find refer to data:

Pricing & Availability
iPhone goes on sale at 6:00 p.m. (local time) on Friday, June 29 and will be sold in the US through Apple’s retail and online stores and AT&T retail stores. iPhone will be available in a 4GB model for $499 (US) and an 8GB model for $599 (US), and will work with either a PC or Mac®. All iPhone monthly service plans are available for individuals and families and are based on a new two-year service agreement with AT&T. Individual plans are priced at $59.99 for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes and $99.99 for 1,350 minutes. All plans include unlimited data (email and web), Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile and a one-time activation fee of $36. Family plans are also available.

 

[tooltalk]

This is why I left AT&T after 13 years for T-Mobile over 3 years ago.

AT&T dropped my unlimited plan in 2015 -- I was using too much data, over 20GB -- but continued on with AT&T for another two years.

I switched to T-Mobile late last year and my monthly bill for a family plan with 2 limited and 1 unlimited data lines went from $200 to $140 . Then just a few months ago, we found out that T-Mobile also offers generous discount for veterans (or those still in service) and now my monthly bill is $90 for unlimited everything (+ 10GB hotspot data).

 

[KPandian1]

Aren't cellphone service costs going down year after year in most of the world? Only exception seems to be North America.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You might want to read the contract you sign with companies, almost all have a clause allowing them to have the ability to do this. Considering the US congress loves the lobbying money they get from the companies, they won't do jack to protect their citizens, nothing is going to change.

Citizens as a group "just say no." When the collective money stops flowing, it would change. Hoping the GOV- or anyone else- will strong-arm some entity to do the right thing is the wrong mentality. Vote with the wallet. If you don't like a corporate move, don't keep giving that corporation money. If enough others will do the same, the corporation will come around.

In this case, I would expect near 100% sentiment that $5 is WRONG. However, for all the posts that generally lean in that direction, how many will just pay the $5 anyway? The reasons corporations raise prices like this is because consumers will pay them. Stop paying as a group and prices will come down. Can we do that?
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Aren't cellphone service costs going down year after year in most of the world? Only exception seems to be North America.

Because Americans will pay ANYTHING to keep cell service. The phone service is probably more important than an arm, leg, kidney, spouse, kid, home, car, etc to some consumers. Ever seen a homeless person bumming on the street with a cell phone? If the group of service providers would all double their rates, we'd whine to no end but then just pay up.

And they KNOW we'll pay, so that's why they dare to do stuff like this. If it works, they significantly increase average monthly revenue per subscriber. If it doesn't work, they can always fall back to the old price. But it will work.

 

[rjp1]

I held onto mine for a while. Eventually, I switched to TMobile and couldn't be happier. My bill is half what I paid AT&T, coverage is the same, and my speeds are way faster.

 

[KPOM]

I'm so confused. ATT went back to offering unlimited plans (thanks T-Mobile!) with throttling starting at 22GB. From what I've seen, ATT also throttled the "grandfathered" unlimited plans. Soooo, what's the point of staying on a grandfathered plan at a higher price?

Corporate discounts.

 

[Dj64Mk7]

I have no problem with this.

People who are too cheap to buy a home internet connection are abusing the hell out of this and using it as their primary internet for an entire household.

Time to pay up.

Maybe people simply can't afford home broadband. My family sure can't afford $75/mo for 30 Mbps or worse for actually livable speeds. And that's the only option in town.

 

[Wags]

Show me the documentation that said speed. All of the articles and ads I could find refer to data:[/QUOTE]
My point was ATT’s terms really didn’t address fully so worked out (as usual) they can throttle. Now pretty clear in their TOC.

 

[albebaubles]

Maybe people simply can't afford home broadband. My family sure can't afford $75/mo for 30 Mbps or worse for actually livable speeds. And that's the only option in town.

Exactly.

It's not abuse -- we're paying for a service and using it.

Amazes me - I'll bet 50% of the people with home based broadband internet would do just fine using only their phone.

I'm sick of everyone bashing AT&T....it's not like they're trying to rip you off -- they have to keep up with technology as well, and it COSTS MONEY.

 

[pokerplayer73]

Ported out my numbers, with NO penalty, from AT&T last time they raised the price in March 2017. It was good timing. Ported to T-Mobile, used to pay $150 for 2 lines to ATT. with T-Mobile , pay $80 for 2 lines with 20% off and more if I use less than 2GB for the month.

 

[Wags]

No it wasn't. Wireless carriers never make speed guarantees.

Said best speed not any specific speed guarantee. Point is that sold without really specifically addressing throttling because really wasn’t issue initially when started selling plan. There was push back when first throttling at 5gb. Now their terms are more specific.

 

[Biggey]

This is a class-action lawsuit. How can you modify a "grandfathered" plan?

The legal contract of service is either for a 2-year period (which would have ended in 2012 at the latest) or month-to-month. Which means the price is currently only guaranteed for one month. Technically they could remove the plan all together, but that would be much more obvious than slowly increasing the cost one year at a time.

 

[Babbott92]

Shouldn't this plan be called the 22GB plan not unlimited? What's unlimited about being speed throttled at 22GB?

Not at all. The amount of data is unlimited, not the speed. The speed could never be unlimited, that's a given.

 

[chr1s60]

You still get throttled with the grandfathered plan.

I believe the new plans throttle based off overall group usage if you're on a family plan. This wasn't the case on the original plans., it was on a individual basis.

 

[tooloud10]

Once again... if there is not difference in performance, and actually MORE expensive than the current unlimited plan being offered, why are they raising the prices again?

They're trying to pressure you to leave the plan on your own accord because that's associated with a more positive customer experience than forcing you off.

And if it's from "costs associated with keeping the plan around that I'm not privy to", but they can also just change features or discontinue the plan at their pleasure whenever they want, THEN WHY AREN'T THEY JUST DOING THAT?

They're trying to maximize the number of people that leave the plan and minimize the number people that get mad and leave altogether.

The fact that you think it's such an absurd idea that a massive corporation like AT&T might be hiding something from a small group of long-time customers is astounding to me. You seem to be reaching very hard to come up with an answer that would make sense, and I have yet to see one.

I'm not doing any reaching--I understand exactly what they're doing. OTOH, it's hilarious that you're accusing me of reaching for something and not providing any answers while it's actually you that are doing that. I'm guessing that the people that don't understand this have no marketing or sales backgrounds.

I'll repeat it for you one more time: THEY WANT CUSTOMERS OFF THE PLAN BUT NOT SO BADLY THAT THEY'RE GOING TO KICK THEM OFF AND POTENTIALLY CREATE EX-CUSTOMERS.

So...tell us what they could be hiding. Go ahead and speculate. Think big. You haven't told us anything yet.

 

[chr1s60]

Part of my reason for keeping mine is because ATT seems to want me off it. I don’t trust them. Is there any difference between the old grandfather’d unlimited plan and the newer ones?

I have noticed no difference aside from having a cheaper bill now.

 

[GrandfatheredPlan4Life]

Switch to a different plan then.

B. Then why are you so obsessed with them then that you had to come here to create an account to complain about it?

C. What do you expect when you yell conspiracy - but have no idea what you're talking about?

And the company honored that deal for a while, and then they changed their offerings. Where are they trying to back out?


Show me the documentation that said speed. All of the articles and ads I could find refer to data:

Pretty hard at work here defending AT&T! Sure hope they're paying you enough!
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A smart business (not saying this applies to AT&T) recognizes there are customers they *don't* want as customers.

Progressive Insurance recognized this years ago and heavily promoted their price comparison tool. Add a bit of setting up high-pricing for customers they don't want (due to accidents, driving record, age, etc) and they encourage existing customers to find the door.

I'd hazard a guess that there's a fair portion of grandfathered-unlimited users who are high volume users. That's not necessarily a customer AT&T wants to keep. Perhaps from their point of view, its a win if they get the high volume folks to go elsewhere.

But then if that is the case, why not just revoke the grandfathered-in unlimited plans????? It makes absolutely ZERO sense. Either they can't, and they're just trying to get all of them out before people realize it, or they can and are just worried about customer retention.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Email was just sent out to old unlimited plan members making them aware of the change.