Let's leave taxes.
Tmobile: $60 a month
Att (450 min) ($40) (with rollover plus any mobile) with $20 unlimited texting) plus 3gb data ($30) equals $90/month.
Now factor in the up to $450 subsidy ATT gives. That comes out to about $19/month.
$90-19 equals $71 for ATT.
So for most people it really costs $71/month if u factor in subsidy for att.
Vs tmobile $60/month.
But realistically you can't factor in that subsidy because most people will/do not. On a monthly basis you are paying less for another carrier.
I'd give AT&T a call again and ask to speak to the retentions department.
Tell them what you said above and the price comparisons and that you're thinking about switching away from them. Tell them you cant afford the high bill and are willing to make some compromises on coverage to make ends meet. Ask what they can do for you and if they can match it or credit your account.
Many times they will give a discount for $20-30 off per month for the next 6 months or a certain amount of credit towards future bill or something like that.
Cant hurt to try, if you've been with them for a while and paid on time they will do something to keep you usually.
I hope that this does work. AT&T was quite happy to watch a 12-year customer (longer if you consider shared plans) walk out the door who was never late, not even once, rolled over 70% of unused minutes monthly and used less than 3 GB of data a month, most months it was less than 2 GB. I was a model customer who was also on auto-draft and never once had to battle anything out with them. Did what I was supposed to when traveling overseas, never begged or tried to get a new phone before my contract allowed, and basically was just some customer who paid their bill.
They opened that door for me and let me walk. The conversations leading up to my cancellation were surrounding calls dropping. It was my fault, clearly I was doing something wrong and/or I needed to buy another phone instead of the iPhone, they said. What they did not say but basically didn't need to was I was one customer who was leaving and they just signed up 12 more. There was no need for them to retain me. Of course, this was a year before the iPhone hit Verizon so that may have been their attitude back then.
I've thought about returning to AT&T but I'm left with the memory of them claiming dropped calls were actually my fault and that I had the audacity to actually look to them for help. I even asked for their microcell as I noticed many were getting them for free then selling them off and they told me they will send me one, once I handed over my credit card and was charged for it.
I am on VZW but considering TMO. I do pay $97 a month for unlimited data, unlimited text and 450 minutes. I find that to be slightly too much when I look at TMO plans. In an effort to test TMO recently I placed an order for a phone and the nightmare of trying to re-order began. Although I reached out on twitter, I had to resolve the issue myself when the e-mail they asked me to send was never responded to. My first experience with them was a headache but if coverage is good I am willing to re-think the move from VZW to TMO.
