AT&T to Raise Price of Grandfathered Unlimited Plans From $30 to $35

[JosephAW]

Sprint won't be far behind. Eventually there will be no thing called unlimited.
Hotspot is just as bad... Maxed out my 2gb hotspot in one day because I left it on and apple tried to download 9.1 on all my devices.
Now I have to wait until the 29th to serf on my desktop or sync my email. Lame

 

[fredfnord]

So, let's see. Last time the rates were raised was early 2008. We don't have inflation numbers for all of 2015, let alone first quarter 2016, so let's say 2007 to 2015 instead. (2007 had low-ish inflation, ~2%, unlike 2006 which was quite high, so it's an appropriate place to start.)

$30 in 2007, adjusted for inflation, becomes $34.41 in 2015 to date. AT&T has raised the price to $0.59 more than it was in 2007. Assuming they don't raise it immediately again, by the middle of next year, it will again be cheaper than it was in 2007.

I mean, God, I'm as much against the crappy telecom companies we have in this country, with their ridiculously high oligopoly rents and their terrible service as anyone else is, but to complain about a $5 price hike on a product that AT&T doesn't even want to offer any more, which barely covers inflation, is to miss the point so severely that I'm not really sure that it can be adequately communicated.

(And I must say that the decision to not let T-Mobile and Sprint die is looking smarter every day. Actual price competition! Who would have imagined THAT, seven years ago? I just wish that T-Mobile or Sprint were a reasonable option for me...)

 

[taxiapple]

I'm thinking it is a good way to get out of my contract 7 months early.

 

[2010lexus]

If this was the only thing they did your post would have some merit. AT&T has raised rates on every plan, trying to get people to join family plans that are more expensive, charging more for data, not honoring their contracts etc. But yeah, go head and complain about Murica because you think telecom monopolies are awesome. Meanwhile cool aid drinkers like yourself who bend over and take whatever they give you are the real problem.

You need to actually read the contract that you or anyone has signed before you go off saying they are not honoring the conracts..

 

[bpeeps]

Does anyone still use ATT? I a a physician, need to be connected everywhere. I switched to T-mobile and have not looked back. I had ATT form 1999 - 2014. Particularly happy to no longer getting a big surprise roaming crap form overseas travel Never could get ATT to give me an honest answer about coverage, and bogus plans.

ATT is the 2nd biggest cell company in the US, what do you think?

 

[techwhiz]

Capped data plans started because of people who abused the unlimited service in the past.

Hike it up more so they suffer like the rest of us.

They did not. Capped plans started because they could make more money.

 

[iapplelove]

I'm at 10gb and half way through the month so yeah 5 bucks doesn't bother me one bit

 

[bushman4]

Does ATT really need my $5 ?? Or is this a parallel play with Verizon

 

[Plutonius]

Thus is why I have T-Mobile.

As much as I like T-Mobile, its coverage is terrible compared to AT&T and Verizon .

 

[garylapointe]

Price goes up $5 for the first time since iPhone 3G... And people are gonna complain. America is great.

We totally knew this was coming, and it's only $5. Kind of a no-brainer to keep it.
Brilliant on AT&T's part, it's a reasonable price increase, most with unlimited will (probably) keep it.
Any idea on the numbers? Is this 100,000 lines? or 1,000,000?

I don't think my bill has gone up at all in 6(?) years (until now).

ACTUALLY, my bill has gone DOWN. With the free A-List and addition of unlimited mobile to mobile (for any cell company) I've been able to lower my plan minutes and that has saved $20 a month. Plus, the unlimited texting/M2M dropped $10 a month.

Can't complain...
Gary

 

[techwhiz]

I'm at 10gb and half way through the month so yeah 5 bucks doesn't bother me one bit

I'm on Verizon and with the $20 increase I still didn't give up my unlimited.
Fo those that say inflation should have prices go up. You are wrong.
Data should be getting cheaper as technology evolves.
My home internet connection speed has increased by 10X while the price has dropped by 40%.

This is not a consumable resource, like electricity and gas.
And quite frankly, the cost of gas is at it's lowest level in years.

 

[lordofthereef]

To be honest it is not only more reasonable than Verizon, but even TMO (for single lines). Granted, I would be more impressed if they brought back unlimited for everyone at, say $60 (data only) and just raised the price across the board. One can dream. I won't be coming back any time soon unless they significantly change things (or unless circumstances with work/home force me to dump TMO).

 

[jlseattle]

So glad I left AT&T for T-mobile eons ago. T-mobile is so much cheaper for the unlimited everything. I saved 45 a month just switching. No worrying about data limits. So nice.

 

[Nanotyrns]

Price goes up $5 for the first time since iPhone 3G... And people are gonna complain. America is great.

This is nowhere near the levels of evil that is Verizon.

Exactly. Let's sit back and listen for the detonation of a bajillion people losing their minds over this.

 

[jca24]

True, but unlike Verizon it applies to those currently on contract. I guess Verizon had so few still left on contract (mostly through the iPhone 6 "glitch" this time last year) that it didn't matter. I re-upped my contract in October after Verizon's move thinking AT&T would wait until the contracts were up. In any case, I'm not about to cancel. The $120 (or $90 after my FAN) over 2 years isn't worth losing unlimited data just yet.



True, but for now it's still a better deal than what I can get currently from others.

The timing is interesting. Sprint just ended their "cut your bill in half" promotion and replaced it with a less generous version (the savings are now guaranteed only until February 2018). Verizon just announced a price increase. So did T-Mobile. Eventually Verizon and AT&T will price us out and onto tiered plans, perhaps when 5G rolls out.

They will not price you out, the next move, and it will be soon is to do away with the plan.

 

[Breaking Good]

Does ATT really need my $5 ?? Or is this a parallel play with Verizon

Have to pay for the new spectrum they plan on buying at the next auction somehow.

I guess most people on this forum are too young to remember when you use to pay by the minute for landline long distance. Then you paid by the minute for voice calls. Then you paid by the text.

Technology evolves and the market changes.

My guess is that the reason AT&T offered unlimited data to begin with was that they had no reliable way to measure data usage of its customers. As their systems caught up to capture the usage data, they and the other cellular companies adapted their plan offerings accordingly.

Likewise, I also guess that the cellular companies have found that the cost of tracking and billing minutes and texts exceeds the cost of just providing unlimited minutes and text which at this point has probably plateaued . So it is better to offer UTnT at a flat rate and make their profit off of the data.

 

[lordofthereef]

I'm on Verizon and with the $20 increase I still didn't give up my unlimited.
Fo those that say inflation should have prices go up. You are wrong.
Data should be getting cheaper as technology evolves.
My home internet connection speed has increased by 10X while the price has dropped by 40%.

This is not a consumable resource, like electricity and gas.
And quite frankly, the cost of gas is at it's lowest level in years.

Upgrading equipment for local stationary data throughput is a lot cheaper than installing dozens of towers. Most of these companies are operating at around 10% profit margins. TMO is something around 1-3%.I think we have reached an acceptable level with LTE speeds where we won't be seeing necessariy overhauls of towers every 2-3 years (just a guess, I may be completely wrong) so that might lead more credence to the idea that investing in towers goes down. This isn't in defense of these providers, by the way. Just adding tot he discourse.

 

[iapplelove]

So glad I left AT&T for T-mobile eons ago. T-mobile is so much cheaper for the unlimited everything. I saved 45 a month just switching. No worrying about data limits. So nice.

I don't think I could ever see myself leaving At&t for tmo

 

[ohio.emt]

I'm on Verizon and with the $20 increase I still didn't give up my unlimited.
Fo those that say inflation should have prices go up. You are wrong.
Data should be getting cheaper as technology evolves.
My home internet connection speed has increased by 10X while the price has dropped by 40%.

This is not a consumable resource, like electricity and gas.
And quite frankly, the cost of gas is at it's lowest level in years.

Who do you have that your home internet has gone down? Mine has stayed the same or a slight increase for the same speeds.

 

[Jetfire]

Why does AT&T still grandfather these plans if they don't want people to have them? When the contract is up just say that plan is no longer available.

I'm about to give up my iPhone unlimited data Plan on AT&T. I have been on it since day one of the iPhone launch. I also have the Unlimited plan on my iPad. The reason I'm giving it up is that it is not worth it to me. I'm mostly on WiFi and really don't top 2GB of data a month. I could justify it before when the iPhone was subsidized but no anymore. The other thing that made me give it up is being unable to tether. I don't need to tether much but sometimes when I'm in the field I need to download something on my Laptop.

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

$5 is nothing. I'll be upset if they take away the subsidy.

 

[thadoggfather]

Pretty nice to no ETF if you move off cause of this but t mobile already pays ETF

I guess I'm going to stay with att unlimited still, but this is just the start..

 

[iOSFangirl6001]

Price goes up $5 for the first time since iPhone 3G... And people are gonna complain. America is great.

This is nowhere near the levels of evil that is Verizon.

Exhibit A.

Lol true and you called it like a pro

Only one comment :
Greedy bastards !!!
Let this $5 stuck in their throats !

Yes because $5 is totally unreasonable for "unlimited" whilst ALL other carriers increased more or nixed unlimited and added less transparent complex algorithms that decide when to throttle

Shocking! So doesn't that leave just one carrier who hasn't increased their grandfathered prices?

Nope pretty much all US carriers raised or axed unlimited

 

[mdwsta4]

I don't want my bill going up, but it is only $5 a month, so it's not too big of a deal. If I'm looking at at&t program offerings correctly, I still don't see a better deal from them. 5GB of data plus messaging and phone would essentially be the same price as my current unlimited data/text/phone plan.

 

[k1121j]

5 bucks I can swing not outrageous I'll live