Roger Fingas
AT&T on Wednesday revealed new data plans skewed in favor of its higher-end tiers, though also finally eliminating overage fees for heavy users.
The new plans — taking effect this Sunday — cost $30 per month for 1 gigabyte, $40 for 3 gigabytes, $60 for 6 gigabytes, $80 for 10 gigabytes, $90 for 16 gigabytes, $110 for 25 gigabytes, and $135 for 30 gigabytes. The 25- and 30-gigabyte plans are significantly cheaper than before, having previously hit $175 and $225, but the bottom tier now has half the data of its old equivalent, and others have been replaced or removed, such as the $20/300-megabyte and $50/5-gigabyte options.
Under the new overage system subscribers will simply see their speeds throttled once they hit their data cap, much like T-Mobile. With previous plans, the company was charging $15 for an extra gigabyte after exceeding any rollover allotments.
AT&T's main competitor, Verizon, charges an additional $5 on most plans to include throttling instead of overage fees.
Carriers will sometimes change up cellular plans ahead of new iPhone launches, hoping to catch a wave of new customers, or at least deter upgraders from switching. The "iPhone 7" is expected to be announced on Sept. 7, and ship on Sept. 16 or 23.
People on existing AT&T plans must opt in if they want the new ones.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Andrew O'Hara
William Gallagher
21 Comments
How do these compare with grandfathered $35 unlimited plan data throttle points?
Anyone trigger a throttle recently? What's the current threshold?
In other news, AT&T is still overpriced, and their coverage still sucks. Oh, and if you're grandfathered into one of their "unlimited" data plans and you think you're getting a deal, write down your usage patterns, do the math and compare with T-Mobile. You'll be horrified by how much you've been overpaying all these years for inferior service.
The catch is that the cost per line goes up from $15/m to $20/m. Since the taxes are applied to the per line cost and not to the data bundle, that also increases my taxes from $5/m to $6.66/m. For two lines, it would be an increase of $13.32/m.
Fck ATT, POS company.
so let me get this straight. They went from $30 for a 2GB shared data plan to still paying $30 but now cutting the data in half to 1GB? So if you use 1.8GB every month, now the service slows down 1/2 way through the month.
If you occasionally went over before (lets say 1 once every 6 months), they would charge you a one time $15 and give you another 1 GB. i.e. Give you effectively get a total of 3GB for $45 for that one month. Then next month you go back to $30. Now since they dropped the 2GB plan,they want to lock you in to pay $10 more EACH month regardless if you only need 1.8 GB or face getting throttled half way into the month?
yep.. that sounds like their MO. What a deal.