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AT&T to End Traditional Voice/Data Plans, Adopt Mobile Share for New Customers on October 25

nopc4me said:
Family with 4 iphones - about $160/month on at&t now.

If joining after forced mobile share -

300mb - $220/month
1gb - $220/month
2gb - $230/month
4gb - $230/month
6gb - $230/month
10gb - $240/month

Hahaha!
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I'm doing $128/mo with FAN discount for 2 iPhones and a dumbphone. It would either be $130 or $170 for the most basic plan (depending on if the dumbphone was $10, it's own plan, or included), and more likely $140+, and I'd loose the FAN discount. I don't want unlimited voice or data. I barely use 100 minutes a month, and 10 texts (mainly thanks to iMessage). This is just stupid.

TEG
 
antiprotest said:
I think the unlimited stuff is a smokescreen. This is a strategy to increase the price on data.
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Exactly. The unlimited text and talk is an acknowledgement that that has been commoditized by competition + things like iMessage, Facetime Audio, GoogleVoice, Facebook Chat, etc.
 
mrbrown said:
Or you can pay $70 a month and get unlimited everything through T-Mobile. Or $45 a month and get unlimited everything from an AT&T MVNO such as Straight Talk (which now has LTE access).

Why would anybody be stupid enough to get price gouged like this?
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Straight Talk doesn't really offer unlimited everything. They offer unlimited Text+Talk. Data is actually limited to 2.5GB before it is severely throttled. Also, not visual voicemail (for what that is worth), and no tethering.

Still, I'm looking seriously at switching now that my 4s is out-of-contract and unlocked.
 
Berserker-UK said:
I think I'll stay in the UK thanks. We can get single device SIM-only plans as low as $11 for 500GB data, 150 mins talk and unlimited text. If you want unlimited everything, that'll be $24.

$70 for their cheapest data-inclusive plan is just plain crazy!
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My wife is British. Just out of curiosity, other than mobile phone plans, is there anything in the UK that is cheaper/easier than in the US?
 
I figured they would tweak the prices a bit more.

Basically, with four lines, you're looking at this:

300MB: $220
1GB: $220
2GB: $230
4GB: $230
6GB: $230
10GB: $240
15GB: $280
20GB: $320
30GB: $420
40GB: $520
50GB: $620


So what should you get? 10GB. That's it. Anything else doesn't drop the cost much, and anything more makes the costs rise too much.

Why have so many "choices" if almost none of them make sense?

There is NO reason to go for 300MB when 1GB cost the same thing. There are no reasons to go for 2GB or 4GB when 6GB costs the same thing, and 10GB just $10 more.
 
eas said:
Straight Talk doesn't really offer unlimited everything. They offer unlimited Text+Talk. Data is actually limited to 2.5GB before it is severely throttled. Also, not visual voicemail (for what that is worth), and no tethering.

Still, I'm looking seriously at switching now that my 4s is out-of-contract and unlocked.
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Unlimited and throttled is better than anything att offers. Again you're comparing a plan att hasn't offered for years.
 
Jessica Lares said:
I don't get out enough to pay all these outrageous smartphone plans that keep getting worse and worse every year.

I'll just get an iPod Touch and get on with my life.
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That's what I did 3 years ago. Just got fed up with the cellular racket. Went to Skype on an iPod Touch because there's already wifi at all the locations I frequent. Then the iPad (& now mini) replaced that. It's just small enough to be convenient, and with the cell antenna option, anywhere there's not wifi are either places I don't want to be bothered with calls, or there's no reception anyway, or, just buy a chunk of data if desired.

I run both my companies on it and couldn't be happier. No phone company BS.
 
So now they have the exact same plans down to the penny that Verizon has. What a scam.

----------
shenan1982 said:
The bleeding of AT&T has begun.

With today's announcement of T-Mobile having 200 cities live LTE, free unlimited international roaming, and already having 99% of the population covered with HSPA+ 42mbps (which is even faster than ATT's LTE_, the cards are in TMO's hands, and everyone else is on the defensive now. T-Mobile is the carrier to be afraid of if you're ATT or VZW. They're young, aggressive, and very user friendly. And with International Roaming data and text, I'm sold. I'll gladly pay $325 x 6 lines to save myself $1000 a month in data roaming charges.
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That 99% HSPA+ is bogus. I live in a city of 200,000 and t-slomo only provides 2G service. No way that only 3 million people in the US can't get HSPA+ from T-slomo. That's statement is absurd.
 
Att go phone $60 unl talk text and 2gb LTE data is the way to go. Buy your phones off contract if you want to be smart. IMO its worth the money over straight talk. I just switched off st to go phone. ST has a lower priority when it comes to data. I always had intermittent connection initiation problems on ST.
 
eas said:
Straight Talk doesn't really offer unlimited everything. They offer unlimited Text+Talk. Data is actually limited to 2.5GB before it is severely throttled. Also, not visual voicemail (for what that is worth), and no tethering.
Click to expand...

Unlimited is still unlimited, regardless of whether or not it is throttled. And 2.5GB at high speed is plenty for all but the heaviest of data users -- I stream Pandora every day on my 1 hour drive to and from work (2 hours a day) every month, along with my normal usage, and use anywhere between 1.7 and 2GB a month.

AT&T, unless you have one of their unlimited data plans that were phased out years ago, will just charge you another data fee once you go over your allotment. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have slowed down data than have to pay another $15-$45.
 
Capped plans where coming. AT&T say that if smartphone markets continue to grow, there was NO WAY they could sustain giving everyone unlimited data plans. Sure it was great in 2007 when iPhone launched, but AT&T couldn't keep that going as millions and millions of people began buying smartphones and needing data.

And that's where the profit is. People's need for data. It's pretty much they only thing they can charge for. The $40 per smartphone thing is absolutely insane.
 
T-mobile is fantastic in big cities -- and their recent free international roaming makes them even more tempting. However, their coverage is terrible outside of urban areas and is completely nonexistent with not even a domestic roaming partner in some places. If they ever match the coverage of AT&T and Verizon you can bet they will match their prices at that point to.

For now, I'm holding unto my grandfathered unlimited data plan with AT&T/1500 texts and 450 minutes. I don't even need all those texts since iMessages don't count against your allotment.

I don't even get throttled after my supposed cap of 5GB which is great. I can't believe they are charging so much for shared data.
 
it depends on your options. for 4 iphones it dropped a bit for us. a couple phones had 1 gig of data and unlimited text so now we have 6 gigs of data to share and pay the same as we were with two phones of min data.
 
Not to mention $15+ in "taxes and FEES"

I really wish that ALL cell companies would be more up-front about their actual costs. Each bill I've ever gotten has taxes (of course) but then an equal or greater amount of "fees". It seems to me that if it's not a tax, then they need to list that amount with their pricing.

I think it's just their way of milking extra dollars from us without saying anything. Don't you all agree?
 
Ha. AT&T's Aio wireless prepaid offers unlimited talk, text, and data, with 2GB of 4G LTE access for $55/month all taxes included or 7GB of 4G LTE access for $70/month all taxes included. They're asking $125/month + taxes for 6GB data on the post-paid plan. Jesus.
 
Wow. I just looked at T-Mobile's family plans and with 2.5GB's for each line (I need 3 lines), I would be $120, versus the $195 I pay with AT&T.

I may need to look into T-Mobile...seriously. Are they good in the Houston area?
 
It was going to cost my wife and I $190 a month for two phones:

Minutes: 450
Data: 3 GB each
Text: Unlimited

So while I love AT&Ts coverage and ability to actually get a signal in a building, I switched to T-Mobile. Why? Three phones

Minutes: Unlimited
Data: Unlimited, 2GB and 2GB (still unlimited but throttled)
Texts: Unlimited
Wi-Fi Calling: Yes (aside from iPhone)
Three NEW phones: $65/month ($0 a month after)
Insurance: $20 (total for two phones).

My highest bill was $145... three phones, three plans, with insurance on two of the phones. Only downfall is iPhone has no wi-fi calling and reception isn't as vast as AT&T was. Plus no reception in most buildings. But the money saved is absolutely worth it.
 
Americans were laughing at Canadians earlier for our 3 year contracts and non-unlimited data plan not too long ago and now some Canadian carrier plans are actually cheaper for 2 year contracts with the same data tiers now.

I am paying 120 per month for unlimited local calls, unlimited text picture and video messaging in Canada, unlimited Canadian long distance and 6GB data + 10 dollars for my iPad to share that data pool on a two year contract. The iPad portion can be cancelled with a one month notice.
 
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barkomatic said:
T-mobile is fantastic in big cities -- and their recent free international roaming makes them even more tempting. However, their coverage is terrible outside of urban areas and is completely nonexistent with not even a domestic roaming partner in some places.
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That's why I bought out my T-Mobile contract and went back to AT&T.

T-Mobile was fine in larger cities around Detroit, where I was once able to connect to the LTE network and pull down 15 mbps. But their blistering 4G never broke 2.5 mbps at home, when I was less than a mile from a tower. I didn't mind, because I use wifi at home, and T-Mobile was cheap.

Then I had to drive to Cincinnati. That's when I discovered that most of my drive on I-75 had GPRS or no coverage at all, once I was out of Ann Arbor. I could understand if I was in the middle of nowhere, but when I'm literally on an interstate?

Back in the days when T-Mobile and AT&T had roaming agreements, this wouldn't have been a problem. But for people who travel in the US, I'd want something more robust than T-Mobile.
 
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