I don't understand your second paragraph. Has AT&T said that they will not offer subsidized phones under these new plans? That would be a problem for me, as I (and my daughter) have "upgradeitis".
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Bye bye Unlimited Data
- Thread starter GravityEyes
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I don't understand your second paragraph. Has AT&T said that they will not offer subsidized phones under these new plans? That would be a problem for me, as I (and my daughter) have "upgradeitis".
Thanks, you nailed it. It is fear based, and admittedly it was that fear that kept me from switching years ago when there was no perk... I just thought I might save a buck. But no, I kept it plan always saying "but if I go over...."
However you look at it 5gb for $30 is a great deal
Let me help you:
(all figures are approximate)
Current bill:
$90 - my line (primary)
$30 - unlimited data
$10 - wifes line
$30 - unlimited data
--------------------
$150
Current Plan includes:
- 700 min
- unlimited texts
Usage stats since 10/2010 (for my situation):
- .6GB/month combined average
- Maximum: 1.5GB/month combined
- wifi at home (both me and my wife)
- no wifi at work (me)
- optional wifi at work (wife)
------------------------- NEW PLAN -------------------------
NEW bill:
$60 - 2GB shared data
$40 - My line
$40 - Wife's line
--------------------
$140
NEW Plan includes:
- unlimited min
- unlimited texts
- tethering (will probably not use or only use in a pinch)
Other points for consideration:
- Based on the statistics and our .6GB combined consumption, we can triple our data use and still not go over.
- Even if we hit our max of 1.5GB combined, we won't go over
- Verizon will send notifications prior to going over in the event we want to upgrade our plan before the billing cycle. If not, they will make it retroactive.
- by signing this plan, Verizon will be paying $450 of my new phone purchase. This saves me $22.50/month (if you will).
I hope this helps you to better understand where *some* of us are coming from.
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I am not sure as I'm not an AT&T customer. I believe if they haven't already, they're going to follow suit with Verizon (that is, you don't get a subsidized price if you don't sign an existing plan.)
Smart phones are $40 to add. Non-smart phones are $30. So your cost on the shared plan will be $40 more than you calculated.
At the 10GB level, the charge for each smart phone is $30.
http://www.att.com/shop/wireless/plans/mobileshare.html#planlist-ptip_sku6220464
The higher your GB count, the lower the cost per smartphone.
Which is why 6GB is the sweet spot for a 2 iPhone family. 2 phones + 4GB = $150. 2 phones + 6 GB = $160. The $10 you save in smartphone cost makes the extra $20 for data worth it.
I suppose it's important for me to add that I am a verizon customer, NOT AT&T. It seems the OP and many others are AT&T.
I'd have to go back and re-read my posts in this thread exactly but I'm pretty sure that the points I was trying to make are not carrier-specific. Some of the dollar-amounts may vary.
I'd have to go back and re-read my posts in this thread exactly but I'm pretty sure that the points I was trying to make are not carrier-specific. Some of the dollar-amounts may vary.
My usage went way up when I got LTE. Why? Because I CAN browse faster... make sense? Pages don't take forever to load, and yes I am talking HSPA+. LTE is so fast I can check out 3 sites vs. 1 while taking a huge dump.
So in my opinion, everyone who got suckered into dropping unlimited are going to be upset soon.
So in my opinion, everyone who got suckered into dropping unlimited are going to be upset soon.
I guess he never said a carrier. For Verizon it is always $40 per smart phone as far as I know. Otherwise 10GB would actually be cheaper than 6Gb for me.
Although I should have been able to tell it was not Verizon by the price of 10Gb. My bad.
do you know about how much your data use went up?
if you don't know (or don't want to share) the amount of use prior to getting an LTE capable device versus now, maybe just "it almost doubled" or "it quadrupled" or whatever.
I'm curious...
I see the value of the new Mobile Share plans, and I'm contemplating it myself, but not until I give iOS6, LTE, and iPhone 5 a month or two to see if my usage patterns change. The way I see it, I have no idea if the iPhone 5 is going to change my usage. I'm guessing it will, much like if I get a shiny new sports car I'd end up driving more just for the sake of driving. Getting from Point A to B faster does make a difference, and probably will influence my data use on the iPhone 5.
Also, I don't know how data consumption might change with iOS6, let alone iPhone 5. With Maps now giving turn-by-turn, I assume using that will eat up my data. What else in iOS6 might change my data habits? I don't know...that's the point.
So while I think the new plans are attractive, I say why not wait a month just to see if your data patterns change before making an irreversible decision?
Also, I don't know how data consumption might change with iOS6, let alone iPhone 5. With Maps now giving turn-by-turn, I assume using that will eat up my data. What else in iOS6 might change my data habits? I don't know...that's the point.
So while I think the new plans are attractive, I say why not wait a month just to see if your data patterns change before making an irreversible decision?
I was hovering around 2gb a month. Now I creep along the scary 5gb limit. I think I actually did 5.25gb last month and didn't get a warning .
. Your strategy is a good one I think.
You do make some good points too. For me, I can see the following influencing data consumption habits:
1. faster speeds (allowing for easier browsing)
2. wifi tether
3. Turn-by-turn
4. Facetime over 4g
5. photostream sharing.
for me, personally, I refute with:
1. I don't browse much on my phone. I have a desk job and sit in front of (literally) 4 computers all day long. I'd rather browse on them anyway.
2. Generally when I need to look something up on a computer/ipad, rarely do I find myself somewhere that does not have wifi. That is -- If I'm at the mall or Doctors office or something, I will tinker with my phone should I feel the urge. I like this feature but don't anticipate myself using it frequently.
3. I use waze right now. I'm not sure how much data this uses in contrast to the new maps turn-by-turn but I would imagine it's similar. Regardless, I rarely use GPS anyway (once every 2 months for ~5 minutes?)
4. I don't know about this one. I do use facetime and I do like it. I thought about it and it's hard for me to see myself using factime outside of the privacy of my own home. That's not to say I won't do it once in a while over my lunch break just to see my daughter but generally, I use it so my parents and in-laws can see their granddaughter. We do this at home, over wifi.
5. I'm not even sure if this will be able to be used over 4G. I look forward to this feature as well and hopefully there's a way to set it to only upload over wifi (the way the current photostream works).
Thoughts?
For your family's old usage, yes. Let me just tell you how my usage changed with the addition of tethering. Under 1GB usage per month on 3G, no tethering, over 10GB usage per month on 4G LTE with tethering. Some months I hit 80GB. Data goes fast when the limiting factor isn't your connection speed anymore.
Now I am not saying your family will use 80GB/mo now but I would have tried 4G LTE on your unlimited plans prior to making any major changes.
I was hovering around 2gb a month. Now I creep along the scary 5gb limit. I think I actually did 5.25gb last month and didn't get a warning
wowza! so 2.5x increase in consumption!
Thanks for that tidbit!
if you saw any of my previous posts I indicated that my wife and I use .6GB/month average and on thursday we will be switching to a 2GB shared plan. If my math is right, we can TRIPLE our current average use and still be within our limits. Also worth noting: I'll be the only one going to a 4G phone. She'll still have my 3G iPhone 4s so I don't anticipate her use going up too much more.
Thanks for the follow up.
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did you ditch your home internet service?
that increase seems astronomical...
Maybe if the 3G pricing was the same as previously, I'm not going to spend $50 on a 5GB plan when unlimited will cost me $30.
I agree, and no throttling anymore. Unlimited is a complete gimmick now.
Got a friend at work whose been scared to ditch unlimited for new Phone.....he checked and he averages 1.6GB per month LOL.
Neither my wife and I ever go pass 1GB a month. I'm always connected to WIFI at work and at home. I've been monitoring our usage very closely for quite sometime and combined usage roughly is about 1GB a month so the switch for us was a no brainer.
I do understand everyones point of keeping their unlimited though. I personally think it's worth it to those who use LOTS of data just not worth it for us.
I do understand everyones point of keeping their unlimited though. I personally think it's worth it to those who use LOTS of data just not worth it for us.
He dropped a Unlimted plan and gained two features thats useful, and unlimited minutes.
No more throttling either.
I think it depends on what you do with your phone. I went from a 3G iphone 4s to a LTE Droid Razr Maxx and my data usage actually went down. So really it all depends on what you use your phone for and how often you are around wi-fi.
With that logic, I should always eat at the "all you can eat" buffets.
Never mind that most of the other restaurants have higher quality food.
I switched to the shared plan for the same reason as the original poster. It is working quite well.
Thats ridiculous. Its no different, 1GB of data transfer is the same 1GB on 3G or 4G, speed in which its transferred has no effect.
You may surf more cause speed is more pleasurable, but just it being 4G has no bearing on quantity of data.
I went from 2gb to 7gb in my first full month of LTE usage. You say you wont use any more data, but in the time it took to load 1 website you load many. Lets say macrumors forums. Before you may wait for a wallpaper thread to show up. Now you see the page and want to look at the previous page and so forth and so on. I was still getting up to 16mb/s when throttled.