“AT&T’s heavily promoted Mobile Share Value plan has been a huge success for AT&T Wireless,” Mark Reschke writes for TGAAP. “The program stopped the bleeding of customers migrating to aggressive campaigns from the ‘un-carrier’ T-Mobile, while at the same time targeted higher priced Verizon plans.”
“In response to AT&T’s aggressive pricing, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile rapidly responded,” Reschke writes. “Verizon has aggressively re-priced family plans, while the ‘un-carrier’ T-Mobile continues to shake the ground of AT&T and Verizon by pushing data caps towards the realm of unlimited.”
“The AT&T Mobile Share Family Plan initially comes in as a strong cost savings for many subscribers, but come this Fall when the new iPhone arrives, the fine print may become a deal breaker for many customers,” Reschke writes. “Millions of AT&T Wireless customers who have switched to the plan with their existing iPhones are not likely to upgrade. In fact, many iPhone 4S and 5 customers may choose to go well beyond their traditional two-year iPhone upgrade path, or switch carriers if they can… AT&T has cleverly moved out of the subsidy game whether its customers realize it or not. The new iPhone Air is likely to arrive in September, and when it does millions of AT&T customers are going to be very upset that adding new iPhones to their Mobile Share Value plan is going to cost them a lot more.”
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