ATT Next is a huge scam! Is it still possible to get 2 year iPhone 6s+ contract w AT&T?

[Applejuiced]

You cannot say "No matter how you look at it with family plans, unlimited data... etc" as truth. This is NOT the fact with a ton of plans. There's a great majority of people on the Family talk plans (esp with 3 or more lines), and those with unlimited data that come out ahead with MSV + next plans. There's a high majority of at&t customers that have switched to these options because of the pricing difference.

Also, if you think you're getting $450 in raw $$$ off your phone without returning it to the carrier through your plan, you're sorely mistaken.

If the MSV/Next aren't good for you, fantastic. But don't pass it off as fact that it's some sort of terrible system that makes 0 financial sense for anybody.

There's a reason they're dieing to get everyone off the old plans, off unlimited data plans and off subsidies.
Its not to do you a favor or save you money, its for their bottom line.
With my 4 line family plan and unlimited data and 4 full subsidies it would cost me double of what Im paying now over 2 years of service and financing 4 iphones via next and on a mobile share plan. Over $4500 more in 2 years.
It is a terrible system and its used to give an advantage to the carrier and get you to go over your max data amount and pay overages while you're leasing your phone.

 

[Oridus]

The biggest con is their introduction of the mobile shared value plans. Most people don't use much of their voice minutes to start with and same goes for text messages but they force you to get those plans and make you pay for something that you don't care much to begin with and charge you a ton of $ for data.

Further the new msv plans unfortunately don't make much sense with the subsidies.

Even with inflation our phone bills have gone up a lot. Don't even get me started with cable.

I beg to differ.

Let's use a traditional 4 member family as an example.

We'll stay away from grandfathered unlimited data plans as well, just for the simple fact that it's not very common (in the grand scheme) of a feature for the general consumer to have.

Family Talk:

700 Mins Share = $60
3x Partner Lines = $30
4x 3gb data plans = $120
Unlim text shared = $30
---
$240, or $60 per line per month


MSV:

MSV 15 Gig Share(unlim talk/text) = $100
4x Smart phones = $60
---
$160, or $40 per line per month


Now lets add in some equipment (Comparing 2 year options)


Family Talk (2 year contracts):

4x 16 GB iPhone 6s: $199.99/ea or $799.96

Take $799.96 and divide it by 24 months (to directly compare to next), that's $33.33 per month added on top of the $240 Family talk plan, per month for equipment charges. You're at $273.33 per month, plus taxes and upgrade fees.

Mobile Share Value:

4x 16 gb iPhone 6s: $649.99/ea or $2599.96

Take $799.96 and divide it by 24 months (to directly compare to 2 year contract on Family Talk), that's $108.33 per month added on top of the $160 Family talk plan, per month for equipment charges. You're at $268.33 per month, plus taxes and upgrade fees. (Keep in mind the upgrade/activation fees are $30 cheaper per line with next compared to subsidy as well).

Now. Let's say you complete 24 months, and don't upgrade for another year (Very realistic with a lot of families).

The Family talk plan STAYS at $240 per month for the rate plan after 24 months for the next 12 months.

The MSV with next, the charges for the phones drop from the bill. That means that the MSV plan goes down to the base rate of $160 for the next 12 months, saving the customer in this example another $960 compared to the family talk plan.

(This example is just that, an example)


This is pretty basic stuff. Now, that being said. There's a TON of factors that go into EACH individual plan, such as fan discounts, state tax rates, grandfathered plans, amount of data traditionally used, varying amounts of lines of service.

Does the MSV/Next make sense for everyone? No... but you cannot spout off that the overall costs have gone UP, because they have not. Worst case scenario, the consumer pays the same, less, or a bit more HOWEVER gets MORE bang for their buck. There's other advantages that people get, like mobile hotspot for example, they wouldn't get in the comparison above if they had the family talk.

 

[Oridus]

There's a reason they're dieing to get everyone off the old plans, off unlimited data plans and off subsidies.
Its not to do you a favor or save you money, its for their bottom line.
With my 4 line family plan and unlimited data and 4 full subsidies it would cost me double of what Im paying now over 2 years of service and financing 4 iphones via next. Over $4500 more.
It is a terrible system and its used to give an advantage to the carrier and get you to go over your max data amount and pay overages.

Not everyone uses as much data as you, though. The majority of the consumers don't come CLOSE to using to what you say you use. Why pay for unlimited data when you don't use it? If YOU use it, GREAT. But not everybody does/did. For those consumers, they'd rather pay less over the same 24 month period of time AND less up front when purchasing their phones AND flexibility to get phones sooner.

/Edit/ Also... you're not leasing your phone through next. It's yours from day one. You're financing it interest free with the OPTION to trade it back should you wish.

 

[Applejuiced]

Not everyone uses as much data as you, though. The majority of the consumers don't come CLOSE to using to what you say you use. Why pay for unlimited data when you don't use it? If YOU use it, GREAT. But not everybody does/did. For those consumers, they'd rather pay less over the same 24 month period of time AND less up front when purchasing their phones AND flexibility to get phones sooner.

/Edit/ Also... you're not leasing your phone through next. It's yours from day one. You're financing it interest free with the OPTION to trade it back should you wish.

9-10GB's is not much data in a month.
And as technology evolves and we're doing more things mobile with higher data intensive hardware and software wireless broadband usage will skyrocket.
And so will everyones carrier bills with those mobile value share plans.
Years ago 200mb data plans were enough for many people with the original iphone 2G. Now one can blow past that within minutes.
The next option where you hand the device back in after you made hundreds of dollars in payments in order to start a brand new next plan from zero is just like leasing a car whether you like to see it or not.
You're renting the device and when a new one comes in you hand it back in and start all over again.

 

[Oridus]

9-10GB's is not much data in a month.
And as technology evolves and we're doing more things mobile with higher data intensive hardware and software wireless broadband usage will skyrocket.
And so will everyones carrier bills with those mobile value share plans.
Back years ago 200mb data plans were enough for many people with the original iphone 2G. Now one can blow past that within minutes.
The next option where you hand the device back in after you made hundreds of dollars in payments in order to start a brand new next plan from zero is just like leasing a car whether you like to see it or not.
You're renting the device and when a new one comes in you hand it back in and start all over again.

Again, to you 9-10gb is not that much.... TO YOU...

Like I said, though... that is HIGHER than the majority of the customers on the system. You are in the MINORITY. Should I say it again, just in case you didn't catch that?

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

We did the math, and moved to the Mobile Share Value from Family Talk and it resulted in significant savings. We don't have any grandfathered unlimited data users, and that would be very important to consider for someone who had that. But the big savings resulted from the fact that two of the lines are for our kids and we hand down our old phones to them, and on Family Talk, we were basically "paying for the subsidy" on their lines as well. MSV is also a win for our main lines, saving about $150 over a two year cycle over a subsidized contract, and then the big win that adding the kids' phones on is only $15 a month, not $40. My daughter was also always bumping up against her individual data limit on FT, and now with the shared plan, it's not an issue.

 

[Applejuiced]

Again, to you 9-10gb is not that much.... TO YOU...

Like I said, though... that is HIGHER than the majority of the customers on the system. You are in the MINORITY. Should I say it again, just in case you didn't catch that?

Not to me, to you maybe 9-10gb's is alot.
I like to enjoy my unlimited data when away from wifi and never have to worry about paying overages. I'd like to be able to stream a full game or watch a movie when I feel like it or listen to streaming music. You will not be able to do that cause you'd pay an arm and a leg and use up all your "value share" data
To you that's not possible currently but Im glad Im capable of it still.

 

[capitanbuzo]

AT&T next used to be a terrible deal versus the 2 year contract, but now that ATT has made their monthly service cheaper for bring your own device/Next customers it is a much more smart way to go. Plus, you don't have to come out of pocket to do it which is always a plus.

Lets do some scenarios:
AT&T Next 24 months for a iPhone 6s plus 128gb
(30 months to pay it off) - $31.64 x 30 =
$950
plus $15 for the service fee every month - 15 * 30
$950 + $450 = Final cost for Next = $1400

AT&T Classic 2 year contract for a iPhone 6s plus 128 gb
$499 up front for the subsidized cost of the phone
$499
plus $40 for the service fee every month (because 2 year contracts have - 40 * 24
$499 + $960 = Final cost for 2 year contract = $1459

You could plug in the same exact formula for the shorter term next contracts and it would come out to the same final cost, but you would have a higher monthly payment.

I thought it was only $15 savings a month at the higher price? I just don't recall.

Another way of looking: amortize the 450 subsidy over 24 months is $18.75 a month savings.

 

[Oridus]

Not to me, to you maybe 9-10gb's is alot.
I like to enjoy my unlimited data when away from wifi and never have to worry about paying overages. I'd like to be able to stream a full game or watch a movie when I feel like it or listen to streaming music. You will not be able to do that cause you'd pay an arm and a leg and use up all your "value share" data
To you that's not possible currently but Im glad Im capable of it still.

Considering that we're completely different people, I fail to see how your lifestyle with your data consumption has any relation to how I use data. I use about 2 gigs per month off my plan, personally. I'm around wifi 40 hours a week at work (which I connect to not just for data usage, but for continuity/handoff features w/ my laptop), and spend a great amount of time at home with my kid (on wifi, not for just for data usage, but for continuity/handoff/apple tv etc). Therefor the majority of the time I use my phone i'm on wifi. I happen to have a 15 gig plan, so if I do need to use data when I'm out and about, I, *GASP*, don't have to worry about what i'm doing.

Seriously... you seem salty that someone on these forums finally makes some sense.

Bottom line, if your plan works for you, great. When the MSV/Next works for MANY other people though, don't try to tell them that it's a bad thing, because that's simply not the case.

Have a good one man, good discussion.

 

[stulaw11]

This will shock a lot of people:

1. The people who say that AT&T Next is ALWAYS a better deal, and those who haven't switched are idiots....are wrong.

2. The people who say that AT&T Next is ALWAYS a scam, and those on a 2-yr. contract can never do better....are wrong.

Some people will save, some people won't. It really depends on your plan.

I had someone spend forever trying to convince me that I was an idiot for not switching to AT&T Next, and that I was just being silly to hang onto my unlimited plan.

I pay $109 a month for two phone lines. One with unlimited, one with 2GB. It's more than enough for what we need. We upgrade one of the phones every year on launch day, since the contracts run out on alternate years. We then sell the old one for the cost of the new one, since it's now unlocked.

So, we pay $109 for two lines, and we upgrade one phone for free every year. Nothing that ANY of the carriers offer can get anywhere close to that! T-Mobile comes close, but AT&T's network is much better. As much as I'd love to support the cool stuff T-Mobile is doing, we will hang onto this plan until they pry it from our hands!

Bottom line is this upgrade round is the end of 2 year contracts so everyone will need to suck it up and deal with it.

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

9-10GB's is not much data in a month.
And as technology evolves and we're doing more things mobile with higher data intensive hardware and software wireless broadband usage will skyrocket.
And so will everyones carrier bills with those mobile value share plans.
Years ago 200mb data plans were enough for many people with the original iphone 2G. Now one can blow past that within minutes.
The next option where you hand the device back in after you made hundreds of dollars in payments in order to start a brand new next plan from zero is just like leasing a car whether you like to see it or not.
You're renting the device and when a new one comes in you hand it back in and start all over again.

The data argument only applies if you had unlimited data to start with. Before we went to the MSV plan, we were on four 3GB individual plans that were the same price as the 200MB plans were when we first started. We fit comfortably in the 10GB MSV plan, where we had problems with the 3GB individual plans at times, because two of us are almost always somewhere that we can be on wifi, so our data plans were largely wasted. There's really not any difference in what would happen with our bill on FT versus MSV. Most people don't have grandfathered unlimited plans, so there's nothing about the MSV plan that makes carrier bills go through the roof compared to FT for them.

I would agree with you about the "trade in" feature of the Next plans, and have no interest in using that "feature". We are on Next 18 plans (can trade in after 18 months), which are 24 month 0% financing contracts if you ignore the trade in. After two years, the phones will be paid off (and they'll get handed down to the kids), so we are in no sense "renting" the phones.

 

[Applejuiced]

Considering that we're completely different people, I fail to see how your lifestyle with your data consumption has any relation to how I use data. I use about 2 gigs per month off my plan, personally. I'm around wifi 40 hours a week at work (which I connect to not just for data usage, but for continuity/handoff features w/ my laptop), and spend a great amount of time at home with my kid (on wifi, not for just for data usage, but for continuity/handoff/apple tv etc). Therefor the majority of the time I use my phone i'm on wifi. I happen to have a 15 gig plan, so if I do need to use data when I'm out and about, I, *GASP*, don't have to worry about what i'm doing.

Seriously... you seem salty that someone on these forums finally makes some sense.

Bottom line, if your plan works for you, great. When the MSV/Next works for MANY other people though, don't try to tell them that it's a bad thing, because that's simply not the case.

Have a good one man, good discussion.

Not salty, just enjoying my freedom.
Its great you have wifi at work and home but again one will only be confined to that small area and if habits or usage change down the road one will be hit with overages.
I personally don't have to worry about that and I can stream video for hours when away from home or work.
For me bottom line those share plans and the payments plans do not make sense.
They would cost me over $4700 more in a 2 year period of what I'm paying now for my family plan.
I'm glad we had a discussion with cons and pros on both sides of the spectrum though

 

[Applejuiced]

Bottom line is this upgrade round is the end of 2 year contracts so everyone will need to suck it up and deal with it.

What makes you so certain of that?
AT&T still has millions of customers on 2 year contract plans.
Verizon is letting those with grandfathered plans still purchase with 2 year subsidies also.
You think they will just serve all these subscribers on a silver platter to their competitors?
As it is both AT&T and verizon are losing customers to Tmobile.

 

[Oridus]

Not salty, just enjoying my freedom.
Its great you have wifi at work and home but again one will only be confined to that small area and if habits or usage change down the road one will be hit with overages.
I personally don't have to worry about that and I can stream video for hours when away from home or work.
For me bottom line those share plans and the payments plans do not make sense.
They would cost me over $4700 more in a 2 year period of what I'm paying now for my family plan.
I'm glad we had a discussion with cons and pros on both sides of the spectrum though

Okay, but again you need to stop projecting what YOU do onto me and others...

 

[Applejuiced]

Okay, but again you need to stop projecting what YOU do onto me and others...

Or projecting on what you could be doing and be just as happy as me lol

 

[Oridus]

Or projecting on what you could be doing and be just as happy as me lol

Well seeing as you're just trolling now, I'll just stop this convo between us. 'Ta

 

[Applejuiced]

Well seeing as you're just trolling now, I'll just stop this convo between us. 'Ta

Just a friendly conversation that's all bud
Enjoy your weekend.

 

[DynaFXD]

I like to enjoy my unlimited data when away from wifi and never have to worry about paying overages.

I had an unlimited plan. I gave it up when I realized I was leaving money on the table. I'll take that money today and not worry about what might happen tomorrow. Net present value and all that. I find it somewhat humorous that some folks tout having an unlimited plan as some sort of badge of honor or something. It's kinda...yesterday's news.

 

[pdxmatts]

We did the math, and moved to the Mobile Share Value from Family Talk and it resulted in significant savings. We don't have any grandfathered unlimited data users, and that would be very important to consider for someone who had that. But the big savings resulted from the fact that two of the lines are for our kids and we hand down our old phones to them, and on Family Talk, we were basically "paying for the subsidy" on their lines as well. MSV is also a win for our main lines, saving about $150 over a two year cycle over a subsidized contract, and then the big win that adding the kids' phones on is only $15 a month, not $40. My daughter was also always bumping up against her individual data limit on FT, and now with the shared plan, it's not an issue.

That's exactly what we did. Same scenario. Plus the kids lines are on different upgrade times, so we can switch lines and upgrade each year if we want to. We always hand our phones down to the kids and sell theirs. Last year ATT had a deal on higher trade in value if you bought the 6. We traded in a 4S for $200 towards the bill. I hope they do that again this year.

 

[pdxmatts]

I had an unlimited plan. I gave it up when I realized I was leaving money on the table. I'll take that money today and not worry about what might happen tomorrow. Net present value and all that. I find it somewhat humorous that some folks tout having an unlimited plan as some sort of badge of honor or something. It's kinda...yesterday's news.

It does sound a little like bragging

 

[DoofenshmirtzEI]

That's exactly what we did. Same scenario. Plus the kids lines are on different upgrade times, so we can switch lines and upgrade each year if we want to. We always hand our phones down to the kids and sell theirs. Last year ATT had a deal on higher trade in value if you bought the 6. We traded in a 4S for $200 towards the bill. I hope they do that again this year.

We did that too. Bought the 6, handed down the 5, traded in the old 4. I wondered if they would take one of our old original 3G's. It's my upgrade this year, buy the 6s, hand down the 5s, I'm not seeing any trade in deal though.

 

[pdxmatts]

We did that too. Bought the 6, handed down the 5, traded in the old 4. I wondered if they would take one of our old original 3G's. It's my upgrade this year, buy the 6s, hand down the 5s, I'm not seeing any trade in deal though.

Well, last year every carrier was fighting for customers to buy from them and we didn't upgrade until October due to the shortage. I wonder if they are going to wait until after Sept 25 to start offering deals. Hope if they do it will include Sept sales. I would love to just trade in one of our i5's. Not the black/slate though. I am partial to that one

 

[bielen]

Well, I am thinking in getting the 2y contract. I use AT&T and for most part have no interest in leaving. Their service has been fair IMO.
My lame math

So a $750 difference. I don't mind to hold my phone for 2 years and keep it after it expires. With Next you must return the phone unless you make all the 30 installments.

Your math is not completely accurate:

Family Talk

Phones: $800
Phones: $200,$200,$400 = $800

Service: $1,440
$80 * 24 months less 25% corporate discount (Assuming only 700 minutes) $70 for first two lines, $10 additional line

Data: $2,160.00
3 lines at $30 per line = $90 * 24 months

Total:
$4,400 with 700 minutes and no text messages
$5,120 with 700 minutes and text messaging
Add another $30/month or $720 if you wanted unlimited text
3GB data per line - 9GB total

Next/MobileShare

Phones: $2,100
Phones: $650,$650,$400 = $800

Service: $1,080
$15 per line per month * 24 months

Data: $1,800.00
15GB for $100 - 25% Corporate Discount * 24 months

Total: $4,980 with unlimited minutes, unlimited text messages and 15GB or data

Savings per line increase as you add additional lines or if you plan on keeping a phone more than 2 years. If you plan on keeping any line more than two years, you are essentially paying $40/mine with no benefit. On MobileShare it is $15.

 

[Travisimo]

I'm on the promo 30GB shared data plan (when they did the double data promo last year) and I want to keep that plan. I just upgraded to the iPhone 6s Plus 64GB using Next 12 and here's why I chose it over buying at full retail or 2 yr contract:

AT&T NEXT 12:

$42.45/mo X 20 months = $849
Line charge = $15/mo
With this option, I can upgrade in 1 year after paying $509. At that point, I trade in the phone and I get a new phone of equal value with the same payment. So basically, AT&T is giving me $340 for my current phone without hassle. That's lower than what I could get for it myself selling it outright, but it makes it easy. Alternatively, I can sell the phone at any time before that, pay off the remainder, and then do whatever I want for the next upgrade. I tend to only keep phones for 6 months or so, and the phone I just bought will have significantly more value than it will at 12 months. I usually have two phones at any given time anyway. Worst case scenario means I just used interest-free financing to pay the phone off whenever I want within 20 months of purchase. Okay, there's the $15 upgrade fee....

FULL RETAIL:

Same as above except instead of financing it through AT&T, I finance it myself. Sometimes when I have a no interest offer on one of my credit cards, I'll do this instead. Either way, I'm paying for the phone myself and my line charge is still only $15/mo. I can sell the phone whenever I want, and upgrade whenever I want. Works out the same as above except I have to do a little more work when it's time to upgrade.

AT&T 2 YR Contract:

$399 subsidized price
$45 upgrade fee
$25/mo line surcharge for 24 months = $600
With this option, I'm paying quite a bit up front and my line charge goes up $25/mo. But of course, I don't have the financing charges. But as you can see, I'm still paying $1044 over the 2 years going this route as opposed to just paying for the phone outright using Next or full retail. On top of that, you're locked into a contract and have to actually cancel a line to get out of it, in which case you are still paying for the rest of the phone with an ETF. You don't have the option of paying off the phone and keeping your line active - you'd actually have to terminate it, whereas with Next or off-contract, you can do whatever you want.

So yeah, as long as you're on one of AT&T Mobile Share Value plans, it's definitely better to use Next or just pay full retail as long as you have a large enough data plan to save that extra $25/mo for the line charge (which I do because we have 5 lines).

Ultimately, they get ya any way you look at it. Neither Verizon nor AT&T are going to sacrifice any amount of profit. Sprint and T-Mobile can actually save you a bit of money, but neither have the network quite yet (overall - in some areas it's definitely worthwhile to have them as a carrier) to compete with the big boys. I tried Sprint here in my area for a couple of months and it was just terrible compared to AT&T. Even when I was on LTE, I rarely got speeds over 1-2 Mbps, whereas on AT&T, I'm usually in the 15-30 Mbps range.

 

[pdxmatts]

I'm on the promo 30GB shared data plan (when they did the double data promo last year) and I want to keep that plan. I just upgraded to the iPhone 6s Plus 64GB using Next 12 and here's why I chose it over buying at full retail or 2 yr contract:

AT&T NEXT 12:

$42.45/mo X 20 months = $849
Line charge = $15/mo
With this option, I can upgrade in 1 year after paying $509. At that point, I trade in the phone and I get a new phone of equal value with the same payment. So basically, AT&T is giving me $340 for my current phone without hassle. That's lower than what I could get for it myself selling it outright, but it makes it easy. Alternatively, I can sell the phone at any time before that, pay off the remainder, and then do whatever I want for the next upgrade. I tend to only keep phones for 6 months or so, and the phone I just bought will have significantly more value than it will at 12 months. I usually have two phones at any given time anyway. Worst case scenario means I just used interest-free financing to pay the phone off whenever I want without 20 months of purchase. Okay, there's the $15 upgrade fee....

FULL RETAIL:

Same as above except instead of financing it through AT&T, I finance it myself. Sometimes when I have a no interest offer on one of my credit cards, I'll do this instead. Either way, I'm paying for the phone myself and my line charge is still only $15/mo. I can sell the phone whenever I want, and upgrade whenever I want. Works out the same as above except I have to do a little more work when it's time to upgrade.

AT&T 2 YR Contract:

$399 subsidized price
$45 upgrade fee
$25/mo line surcharge for 24 months = $600
With this option, I'm paying quite a bit up front and my line charge goes up $25/mo. But of course, I don't have the financing charges. But as you can see, I'm still paying $1044 over the 2 years going this route as opposed to just paying for the phone outright using Next or full retail. On top of that, you're locked into a contract and have to actually cancel a line to get out of it, in which case you are still paying for the rest of the phone with an ETF. You don't have the option of paying off the phone and keeping your line active - you'd actually have to terminate it, whereas with Next or off-contract, you can do whatever you want.

So yeah, as long as you're on one of AT&T Mobile Share Value plans, it's definitely better to use Next or just pay full retail as long as you have a large enough data plan to save that extra $25/mo for the line charge (which I do because we have 5 lines).

Ultimately, they get ya any way you look at it. Neither Verizon nor AT&T are going to sacrifice any amount of profit. Sprint and T-Mobile can actually save you a bit of money, but neither have the network quite yet (overall - in some areas it's definitely worthwhile to have them as a carrier) to compete with the big boys. I tried Sprint here in my area for a couple of months here in my area and it was just terrible compared to AT&T. Even when I was on LTE, I rarely got speeds over 1-2 Mbps, whereas on AT&T, I'm usually in the 15-30 Mbps range.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I to have the double promotion of 20gb for 10gb price from last year for 4 lines. Thanks for that informative post