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Leaving AT&T Unlimited Plan
- Thread starter pooleman
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I got my first throttle warning from AT&T last month, as I went over 3GB while streaming March Madness games. Whereas the plan is technically "unlimited", I don't want my useage over 3GB to be throttled to painfully slow speeds. I would rather pay the $10 on the rare occasion I go over 3GB, and use the 3rd-4th GB at normal speeds.
Then I bought my first iPad when the new ones were released. I went with the wifi only, then changed my unlimited plan to the 5GB + tethering for $50/mo. Gives me A) 5GB/mo, B) tethering for the iPad, and C) unthrottled speeds over 5GB. I didn't want to transfer my "unlimited" plan to the iPad, and surely go over the 5GB alloted for LTE.
I think it's a matter of time until AT&T pulls all grandfathered unlimited plans, and have even heard rumors of shared data plans on family plans. I can share 15GB with the other 2 people on my plan for sure.
Then I bought my first iPad when the new ones were released. I went with the wifi only, then changed my unlimited plan to the 5GB + tethering for $50/mo. Gives me A) 5GB/mo, B) tethering for the iPad, and C) unthrottled speeds over 5GB. I didn't want to transfer my "unlimited" plan to the iPad, and surely go over the 5GB alloted for LTE.
I think it's a matter of time until AT&T pulls all grandfathered unlimited plans, and have even heard rumors of shared data plans on family plans. I can share 15GB with the other 2 people on my plan for sure.
I know someone who was smart and left when it was 2GB/$25. He said he uses a few hundred MB/mo, and now pays $5 less.
EDIT: I think he left like a month after they announced the tiered plans.
As far as data goes it's always better to have more than you need. $5 less and to be limited to only to 2GB is a pretty dumb and foolish move. I'm sure after taxes and other charges, the savings on his bill is barely noticeable. He's a fool.
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I moved from unlimited to 5GB plan with WiFi Hotspot, and never looked back. I only passed the 1GB mark on the unlimited plan once, so it was a no brain'r for me as I want to be able to use hotspot with my MBP and iPad.
I use it often for work, and considering my job pays for my usage it worked well for me, however I wanted to use hotspot anyway.
I feel good about my choice, and eventually all unlimited plans will go away anyway, so I figured better get more bank for my buck so I made the leap.
People with FAN discounts on data need to be very careful.
ATT is now only offer FAN discounts on grandfathered $30 unlimited, 2GB/$25 data / and the newer $50/5GB plan with tethering.
If you sign up for a $30/3GB data plan you will not get a FAN discount.
I get 24% discount on data also. So my $30 unlimited plan only cost me $22.70.
But if I were to switch to the $30/3GB, I end up paying $30 with no discount.
Verizon has a similar policy in place with their discounts also. I am on my brother's Verizon plan also. He's got the 2GB/$30 data plan. I "tricked" Verizon's system using loophole to getting grandfathered into $29.99 smartphone data plan so I can have unlimited LTE.
My brother's $30/2GB data plan doesn't get a discount while my $29.99 unlimited gets a 20% discount.
Read these posts about FAN discounts on data.
http://forums.att.com/t5/forums/for...ge-id/79318/print-single-message/false/page/1
ATT is now only offer FAN discounts on grandfathered $30 unlimited, 2GB/$25 data / and the newer $50/5GB plan with tethering.
If you sign up for a $30/3GB data plan you will not get a FAN discount.
I get 24% discount on data also. So my $30 unlimited plan only cost me $22.70.
But if I were to switch to the $30/3GB, I end up paying $30 with no discount.
Verizon has a similar policy in place with their discounts also. I am on my brother's Verizon plan also. He's got the 2GB/$30 data plan. I "tricked" Verizon's system using loophole to getting grandfathered into $29.99 smartphone data plan so I can have unlimited LTE.
My brother's $30/2GB data plan doesn't get a discount while my $29.99 unlimited gets a 20% discount.
Read these posts about FAN discounts on data.
http://forums.att.com/t5/forums/for...ge-id/79318/print-single-message/false/page/1
I don't agree at all. Anyone paying $30/mo for "unlimited" and thinking they get more than 3GB/mo are just fooling themselves. Why would you want to be throttled at 0.2 Mbps for data over 3GB? I would rather pay $10 more, and keep the fast speeds. And the ability to tether with the iPad prevents you from having to pay a monthly plan for the iPad. I think it's a very smart move, which is why I did it.
$60/year for data he would never use anyways is a really bad deal. That, and if he wants to tether at some point, he can without getting kicked off, since they apparently don't care about tiered plans.
$60/year is not a very large amount of money. I'd rather keep the unlimited just in case my usage dramatically goes up. Which it did after getting the 4S
Now that the comparable plan is the same price as unlimited, there's no point in getting rid of it.
Right, but he was smart, and got it when it was cheaper. The 4S has nothing to do with data usage. If you're using more data, it's because YOU are using more data, not the 4S.
Of course it's my habits that lead to more data usage, I'm not a moron. However, it's the hardware that enable my usage habits. The generally higher speeds (my 3G latency is much lower, and on averafe my download speeds doubled compared to my 4) and the larger number of data dependent features result in more data usage.
I would never downgrade to a tiered plan for a measly $60/year savings. If that makes a significant impact, AT&T isn't the right carrier for you in the first place...
It's not make-or-break, in my friend's case it was just nice to save $60 on something he wasn't ever going to use anyways. I never had the option, but I'm glad that I'm grandfathered in on the cheapest legitimate data plan. And just because we want to save some money doesn't mean we're el cheapos who would go to T-Mo and not have coverage half the time just to save a few bucks.
The 4S doesn't really help you use more data. Pretty much everything works the same. The phone itself is faster, but that doesn't help you use more data.
How does the phone not being faster not help you use more data? That's like saying 3G doesnt help you use more data over edge, which is a ludicrous statement. The speeds make it so that the phone isn't nearly as frustrating to use on the go. As such, I use it more than I used to when not near a wifi source.
I can't imagine $5/month being noticeable if you're not living paycheck to paycheck. There's going to be a larger fluctuation in your electric, heating, gas, etc... There's just too much random variability IRL for there to be a real impact. So given that + the very real possibility of technology improvements enabling more data use, it's just a bad decision to give up the unlimited as far as I'm concerned. Maybe I could see the argument if the difference was larger (or multiplied over multiple lines)
Because the data connection is pretty similar. 14.4 doesn't really offer much improvement over 7.2 IRL.
It's called being smart. $5/mo isn't that much, but if it's something you're never going to use, why spend the money on it? You could go over by 1GB 5 months out of the year, and still be ahead. He isn't a data porker, so he never goes over. I've gone over mine once, after streaming a ton of stuff OTA, doing high-bitrate streaming music, and running a ridiculous amount of speed tests. I could have easily avoided it by not porking so much data, but I didn't really care.
A line on my family plan last week hit 4.5GB on an unlimited iPhone data plan and no throttling or anything. And they usually hit 3-4GB on the regural.
So to assume every single AT&T customer gets throttled as soon as they hit 3GB is foolish.
It's usually done on network congested areas and bigger cities.