AT&T today announced that it is launching a new limited-time promotion for its Mobile Share Value Plans, offering double the amount of data for new and existing customers with monthly data plans of 15GB or more.
Under the promotion, customers with monthly shared data plans of 15GB will now be receiving 30GB of data, while those on 20GB, 30GB, 40GB, and 50GB plans will see an increase to 40GB, 60GB, 80GB, and 100GB of data, respectively. In order to receive the promotion, new and existing customers must sign up by October 31.
The promotional pricing applies to new and existing customers who buy a phone under the AT&T Next early upgrade program, and also includes those who bring their own smartphone or purchase one at full price. In addition to data, the plans include unlimited talk, text, and international messaging.
The move follows an announcement from Sprint last month that offers 20GB of shared data plus an additional 2GB of data per line for $100 a month to new customers switching from other carriers. Additionally, Sprint is offering up to $350 (via Visa Prepaid Card) to cover early termination fees for users switching from other carriers.
Top Rated Comments
This is simply not true. Next worked this way when it was first introduced and was a terrible deal. But it hasn't been like that for quite some time now. If you actually sit down and crunch the numbers, it actually turns out to be cheaper than a traditional 2 year contract.
Gotta appreciate T-mobile for introducing some actual competition into the U.S. cellular market!
This is why next is cheaper:
With mobile share, you pay a base plan fee that constitutes the data, text, and talk buckets for the entire account. As an example, 10GB is $100.
Each line on a mobile share plan has an "access fee." For smartphones under contract, this is $40. For Next, BYOD, or outright purchase, this is $15. So as an example, the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus is $949 outright. On Next, you'll pay 949/20 for Next 12, 949/24(?) for Next 18, etc. on a monthly basis. In any case, what you pay is the full cost of the device by the end of the financing term, since there is no interest. If you do a contract on the same phone, not only are you paying the up front cost of $500, but also $25 a month extra for 2 years as part of the access fee. This amounts to $1100 total. So yes, Next is cheaper, and is not a bad deal.
Someone needs to make a nice graph and detailed explanation and sticky it at the top of the iPhone forum, I swear. This has been explained ad nauseam for months and so many people still miss it or don't understand it.
It's not a ripoff. It's much more transparent and fair than the old 'subsidy' system which made people think they were buying a phone for $199 ($299 or $399) then charged a higher monthly rate for the life of the phone...even when the 24 months was up and the phone had been paid for.
Now you pay a cheaper rate for 'off contract phones'. When AT&T let people switch the mobile share plans, they basically gave everybody 'off contract' pricing...even if they just bought their phone.
Now if people were naive enough to think they were still think they were getting those discounted rates AFTER they bought at $650 phone with no money down, that's on them.
NEXT is about as fair a way to move from subsidies as a cell company could up with.