Rumor confirmed: AT&T has indeed dropped the price of its unlimited data and messaging plan by $5—the new cost is $30/mo, and $10/mo to add a second phone under their shared family plan. Unless you plan on texting more than 200 messages a month, however, it's not worth it (you can get unlimited data + 200 messages for $20). [Engadget Mobile]
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Is that $30 per line then? So two phones on a family plan is still $60 for data?
Hmm, I might actually get some use out of my Blackberry now...
@pecan pi: It says pretty clearly in the article that additional phones are $10, so two on a family plan would be $40.
This doesn't apply to the iPhone unfortunately. Still $30/month PER PHONE for data.
This is still ridiculous. AT&T used to have limited media max plans at more reasonable rates- 5 megs of download and 200 messages for $10.
Now you can ONLY get unlimited plans for $30.
I work for AT&T and have not heard this. Now, admittedly, I work in the technical support dept. and not billing so maybe I was not send that email. Though come Monday it will probably be sitting there if this is true. I recall that we were supposed to evolve, but its about time!
I've also been hearing we are supposed to be getting an iPhone tethering feature too, but that has never come. Hint: you can tether your iPhone and any device with out a tethering plan, which is $60 a month. You just need to be technical enough to figure it out.
I can confirm this because I just got in new printed material for my store.
The deal is that if you have an unlimited messaging feature (either the $20/month individual or the $30/month family), they will knock $5 off the Data Unlimited feature, making it only $10/month. Otherwise it is still $15/month for non-unlimited messaging customers.
I can confirm this is already available to me via my business setup and it doesn't seem as confusing as described above. I simply have an option above my current that states "unlimited text and data" $30. I've got a family plan but not seen anything on the extra $10 for the extra line. That'd make it mighty appealing. And yes, this is not for iPhone. I believe it is only for 2.5G connections and states something along the lines of no PDA phones or iPhones or Blackberries.
Sure, they can afford to drop $5 a month for unlimited data, because they still have the ability to charge upwards of $0.25 to $1.30(!) for sending as little as 160 characters to another phone. See here for AT&T's FAQ regarding messaging.
From what I can tell, this won't work for anyone with a PDA/smartphone (Palm, WiMo-based devices, iPhone). Then again, I haven't called and tried to talk them into switching me over.
When is Canada going to get this? The prices per byte up here are so ridiculous, it's cheaper to get a US phone and pay roaming charges in Canada. Seriously.
@Juliekins: I've heard stories of people convincing customer service reps into putting them on the non-pda version when they have a pda, but I haven't tried it myself. Also seems like buying a go phone, going into the store and having them put it as the official phone on your account, then switching out the sim card could possibly work.
@Juliekins: It works with unlocked Nokia smartphones, but that's probably because AT&T doesn't seem to know most of those models even exist.
If you have a PDA/Smartphone in our billing system it will not allow you to add on the $15 Media Net plan to that device. It can only add on a $30 PDA plan. The trick is to have them put in a fake IMEI and you can add on any Data Plan. It will still work the same.
Blackberries, well, you're boned. You need that more expensive feature.
Problem being: sometimes if the IMEI does not match in the billing system with what our network recognizes when your SIM card connects to it it can cause some minor issues.
@Yogambo: I haven't seen anything about adding a second line to the option either! I would gladly jump on the $30/mo unlimited messaging and data with the $10/mo for the second line, but there is no option for that on the shopping website or the account website. I use the family unlimited messaging for $30/mo and then $15/mo for unlimited data for my phone and my girlfriend's phone. It comes out to $60/mo for those features, so a $40/mo option would be great, *if it existed*.
@Juliekins: I just chatted with them online. It doesn't apply to PDAs. I need to suck it up and continue to pay $30 data on each of two Palms, plus a messaging plan for each.
Excellent timing! I need to switch within a week so am shopping for data & tethering, probably on blackberry.
Wish the PAM wasn't treated like I'm a Rockefeller.