AT&T Wireless Plans Price Reduction

[descovy]

These were my figures before -

120 - 22%(my company discount) = 93.60
30 X 6 phones = 180.00

273.60 + Taxes = $315 per month

That was for 10 GB shared Data Which is Plenty

We only got new phones at our upgrade every two years. We would get whatever was around $99 and sell our old phones so that the new ones were practically free.

Now this is what I am looking at because I know that we not keep these phones that are already close to two years old forever.

Option one buy 6 phones at $600 each and the bill be -
$100 - 22% = $78
$15 x 6 = $90

Around $200 with taxes


Now it will be

100 - 22% = 78
40 x 6 = 240

350 - 350 with taxes


Or with installments and two on subsidy combined.

100 - 22% = 78
15 x 4 = 60
40 x 2 = 80
32 x 4 = 128

Around 390 with taxes.

So if I am figuring correctly att has done me no favors. I will have to figure out another plan as we can't keep our phones from here on out. $315 didn't seem so bad to me to get new phones every two years. This seems a little ridiculous.

Under the old way of doing things, you were a fool if you didn't upgrade your phone for 2 years. Your bill was the same whether your phone was brand new or 4 years old. You kept paying "subsidy prices" even when your phone was long paid for. There was no incentive to hold onto a old phone.

Consider this new plan if you personally don't feel the urge to upgrade ALL your phones at the same time every 2 years. For example, I can upgrade now and give my old phone to my dd. In my family we don't all need new phones at the same time. So it makes sense for us to switch.

There's an incentive to hold onto an old phone (even if I'm trading it down to my kid).

But yes, if your family insists on new phones every 2 years this might not be the deal for you.

As in all cases YMMV.

 

[momof1princess]

Okay. We have 2 smartphones and 1 flip phone. Upgrades are due in May, 2014. Plan is 550 anytime minutes per phone per month. Unlimited texting for all phones ($30 per month) and 2 GB data each for the smartphones at $20 each. Our wireless bill is $150 per month! Would this new plan thing help us?

Anyone?

 

[wenrob]

Anyone?

There is a chart on the AT&T website that should help you out.

 

[descovy]

Okay. We have 2 smartphones and 1 flip phone. Upgrades are due in May, 2014. Plan is 550 anytime minutes per phone per month. Unlimited texting for all phones ($30 per month) and 2 GB data each for the smartphones at $20 each. Our wireless bill is $150 per month! Would this new plan thing help us?

For you, maybe not.

If you did the 10gb it would be $165. $100 data plus $15/phone (even flip phones)

If you pooled 4gb data to share it would be what you are paying now. $70 for data, $25/smart phone, I think $20 for basic phone. So $150

 

[msdaisy]

Under the old way of doing things, you were a fool if you didn't upgrade your phone for 2 years. Your bill was the same whether your phone was brand new or 4 years old. You kept paying "subsidy prices" even when your phone was long paid for. There was no incentive to hold onto a old phone. Consider this new plan if you personally don't feel the urge to upgrade ALL your phones at the same time every 2 years. For example, I can upgrade now and give my old phone to my dd. In my family we don't all need new phones at the same time. So it makes sense for us to switch. There's an incentive to hold onto an old phone (even if I'm trading it down to my kid). But yes, if your family insists on new phones every 2 years this might not be the deal for you. As in all cases YMMV.

Yep - I'm just looking at the bottom dollar. $315 a month - good. $390 a month - bad. I'm fine with getting a phone every two years. I can't believe this 4s is almost two years old. Will be happy as a claim to get whatever is available in September and keep it for two years as well.

I don't care if it is a subsidy or a fee or for data or whatever they label it. I am just concerned about what the final bill is each month.

 

[DawnM]

Thank you.

Now, about the Tmobile, which may be all I need really……Can you use the T-mobile SIM with the ATT iPad or do you need an actual Tmobile based iPad?

I currently have a wifi version iPad 2 and am considering upgrading, but if tethering is an option, I may do that……I need to see though if I am going to get the ATT plan or not.

I currently have a pay as you go plan, but will see if adding me to Dh's work plan would be a better deal.

Kids want Android phones and not iPhones. I am not sure where I went wrong as a parent, but, I can't seem to change their minds.

I am going to call ATT and see if I can get some answers about adding us to his plan and the cost.

Dawn

Not sure about the old plan. Except that you can choose to do a 2yr agreement and pay $40 instead of $15 and get the subsidized phone price.

Yes you can bring your own device and just pay $15/mo.

Tablets are $10. However, you can actually tether the tablet to your smartphone for free. Sucks up a lot of battery... But it's free. I have a cellular ipad with a tmobile SIM card. Tmobile gives 200mb free every month, and then shuts off. So I will continue with my free tmobile data and will tether (personal hotspot) with my phone if I need more. Not to mention tethering is great for the laptop on the go! Sometimes I need to do "real" computing tasks that a tablet isn't optimal for.

For these reasons I chose not to add my tablet. I will just tether it when necessary for free.

 

[descovy]

Thank you.

Now, about the Tmobile, which may be all I need really……Can you use the T-mobile SIM with the ATT iPad or do you need an actual Tmobile based iPad?

I currently have a wifi version iPad 2 and am considering upgrading, but if tethering is an option, I may do that……I need to see though if I am going to get the ATT plan or not.

I currently have a pay as you go plan, but will see if adding me to Dh's work plan would be a better deal.

Kids want Android phones and not iPhones. I am not sure where I went wrong as a parent, but, I can't seem to change their minds.

I am going to call ATT and see if I can get some answers about adding us to his plan and the cost.

Dawn

Any cellular ipad will do. It's just a matter of swapping out the SIM card.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

OP, thank you. I had to call about something else anyway, so I asked about this and wound up saving I think about $30/month - more, with taxes figured in.

It works out well, too, because next time the rest of my family members want to upgrade (ie kids) they get to pay for the new phones themselves. (Not sweating it, though, because that's almost a year away and who knows what will be offered at that time. I actually figured this was going to happen - as it always has, with cell phone plans that we've had. Once the novelty wears off, the competition stiffens.)

 

[momof1princess]

For you, maybe not.

If you did the 10gb it would be $165. $100 data plus $15/phone (even flip phones)

If you pooled 4gb data to share it would be what you are paying now. $70 for data, $25/smart phone, I think $20 for basic phone. So $150

Thanks! I was afraid of that.

 

[DawnM]

Then why do they ask you to specify on the website which carrier you wish to use?

Dawn

Any cellular ipad will do. It's just a matter of swapping out the SIM card.

 

[descovy]

Then why do they ask you to specify on the website which carrier you wish to use?

Dawn

Because they will put a sim card in it for you. But a paperclip is all you need to remove it and put a different sim card.

I did it. My iPad was AT&T. Switched sim cards and its now tmobile. See excerpt below from one of the many articles in the internet...

Specifically, can you take an iPad bought under the banner of the "other 3" US carriers (VZW, AT&T or Sprint) but pop in and use a T-Mobile SIM with its 200 MB of free-for-life monthly data?

It seems that the answer is "yes, it is possible." NBC's Devin Coldewey dug into the subject and confirmed with reps from both T-Mobile and AT&T that the SIM swap is feasible, anytime you want to do it. For direct confirmation, MacRumors forums poster Picho affirms that he/she has indeed swapped SIMs from all US carriers into a new iPad Air, with everything working as it should.

 

[DawnM]

So all the iPads work on GMS and CDMA. Hmmmm….I will have to look into that.

I know some of the newer phones have this capability, but I didn't know about the tablets.

ATT and T-mobile are both GSM and it has always been the case that they are interchangeable, although typically if you have an ATT phone, you would need to unlock it in order to use T-mobile with it.

Dawn

ETA: Ok, I found this article and it seems only the newest model of iPad has the ability to do what you are purporting, and even then, you would need to know if your carrier supports the actual configuration of broadband. The older models do not have this capability. http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ipad/ipad-faq/ipad-design-info-font-where-to-buy-unlocked.html
So, I don't think it is as simple and just picking up any iPad with 3g or 4g or LTE and it can work with any carrier.

Because they will put a sim card in it for you. But a paperclip is all you need to remove it and put a different sim card.

I did it. My iPad was AT&T. Switched sim cards and its now tmobile. See excerpt below from one of the many articles in the internet...

Specifically, can you take an iPad bought under the banner of the "other 3" US carriers (VZW, AT&T or Sprint) but pop in and use a T-Mobile SIM with its 200 MB of free-for-life monthly data?

It seems that the answer is "yes, it is possible." NBC's Devin Coldewey dug into the subject and confirmed with reps from both T-Mobile and AT&T that the SIM swap is feasible, anytime you want to do it. For direct confirmation, MacRumors forums poster Picho affirms that he/she has indeed swapped SIMs from all US carriers into a new iPad Air, with everything working as it should.

 

[Smrtcooky]

I called yesterday and saved $110 off my bill! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Smrtcooky]

I called yesterday and shaved $110 off my bill! Thanks for sharing!

 

[vicki_c]

I haven't read every post here, but has anyone figured out if this can make any sense for folks who have the grandfathered unlimited data? I assume any change to this would mean giving that up. DH and I have that and don't want to lose it. My kids are on our plan now, with the 3GB caps for their phones. I hate my $200+ phone bill!

 

[Chelley00]

I haven't read every post here, but has anyone figured out if this can make any sense for folks who have the grandfathered unlimited data? I assume any change to this would mean giving that up. DH and I have that and don't want to lose it. My kids are on our plan now, with the 3GB caps for their phones. I hate my $200+ phone bill!

Call A&T and ask them how much data you average per month. DH and I both had unlimited, but between us and our 2 teens, we were only using 5-6 GB of data a month which means it made total sense to change plans and go to the 10GB of data which saved us money.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Vicki, I think it probably depends on how much data you use. You can look online to figure it out, or they can tell you. Of course, some people feel you might use more in the future, but for me, I think our patterns are pretty well set by now. (We all had the 2GB/month plans.) I also think that, as we've seen many times before, things change as technology evolves.

In our house, my DS was the one who either came close to our 2GB limit or went slightly over. OTOH, my DH used hardly any. (As a matter of fact, somehow AT&T had increased his limit to 3GB per month, which was not authorized and didn't make sense at all, so we were credited for that mistake as well. They'd charged us $5/month to go from 2GB to 3GB/month.)

Sharing 10GB/month, for us, is more than enough. It's 2GB/month more than we had before, and now it's "shared" so in effect, DS can now use some of the data that DH and I don't use. We'll see how it goes. The good thing is that they send out texts and emails if usage is coming close to the limits, so at least there's a warning. And if we need to go up later (which I doubt, but you never know), we can. I don't want to pay today for something that may happen in the future, if that makes sense. You can always add on a little more data if need be, for a small cost.

I remember when we were first looking at data plans (in 2010 IIR) I looked at research that showed that 90% of people do not go over 2GB/month. I don't know if that's changed, but I doubt it. Does anyone have the most recent data on that? (I'll take a look to see if I can find it, and will repost here if I can.)

 

[vicki_c]

We currently probably use more than 10gb a month most of the time. :-(

I will double check the charts on the AT&T site to verify.

Streaming music is a big thing for all of us, and away from the home wireless network. Plus, I'm getting a new job and will be going back to commuting an hour a day (I've been working at home for years), so that's going to increase that too.

We will probably just have to stick with what we have.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Looks like most users are still under 2GB

Unlimited unnecessary? NPD report finds average smartphone data use is below 2 GB

According to the new data, first reported by Tech News Daily, the vast majority of smartphone subscribers at Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ), AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T), Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) and T-Mobile USA do not use more than 2 GB of data per month, which is the base tier for most usage-based smartphone data plans (Sprint still offers unlimited smartphone data).

NPD's findings indicate that 11 percent of T-Mobile customers use more than 3 GB per month, versus 4 percent for AT&T and Sprint and 3 percent for Verizon. "T-Mobile consumers tend to be younger," NPD analyst Eddie Hold told Tech News Daily. "Younger demographics are the ones we find hit the network harder by doing a little video and music streaming."

The Nielsen data suggested that average data usage has been increasing fairly rapidly but is nowhere close to 2 GB per month.

Yet carriers' data revenue has been soaring as well. Mobile operators in the U.S. raked in second quarter 2012 data revenues of $19.3 billion, up 5 percent quarter-over-quarter and a 19 percent year-over-year increase despite the ongoing erosion of messaging revenues, according to new research from Chetan Sharma Consulting.

Executives from both AT&T and Verizon have said usage-based and shared data pricing are an attempt to generate more cash from data use.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story...verage-smartphone-data-use-below-2/2012-08-24

Nielsen: Average U.S. mobile subscriber uses 450 MB per month

In the first quarter of 2012 the average U.S. mobile subscriber used 450 MB of data per month, according to research firm Nielsen.

The focus on average usage is particularly noteworthy now, since Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) has launched share data plans and AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) will do so next month. Both plans allow customers to share a pool of data among multiple people on a single account, allowing, say, family with higher data usage to share a bucket of data with those with lower data usage.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story...obile-subscriber-uses-450-mb-month/2012-07-19

What size data plan is right for you?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-size-data-plan-is-right-for-you/

 

[Chelley00]

We currently probably use more than 10gb a month most of the time. :-(

You might be surprised. I have two teenage boys who are on their phones all the time plus I steam music at work. We aren't even close to averaging 10GB a month.