“AT&T is once again experimenting with offering unlimited data plans to smartphone customers while promoting its DirecTV service, signaling a potential reversal of industry trends toward data caps and charges for big video watchers,” Tali Arbel reports for The Associated Press. “AT&T is trying to capitalize on its $48.5 billion purchase of DirecTV last year. On Monday, it’s announcing an unlimited data plan for cellphones, if you also get DirecTV or AT&T’s home-TV service, U-verse.”
“The unlimited data deal may be cheaper than AT&T’s limited-data plan if you have a family that watches a lot of video and want cable; if it’s one person, sticking with the existing plan is likely a better value, especially if you don’t want cable,” Arbel reports. “It’s a limited-time offer but AT&T won’t say when the promotion would end. People who sign up can keep their plans when or if the promotion ends.”
“T-Mobile and Sprint, the No. 3 and No. 4 carriers, currently offer unlimited plans for new customers (T-Mobile also just raised the price ). But they throttle, or slow your speed, after you use up 23 gigabtyes. AT&T says it may do this if there’s a lot of demand on the network once you’ve hit 22 GB,” Arbel reports. “That translates to about 25 hours of high-definition video in a month. Verizon says it has stopped doing this.”
Arbel reports, “The unlimited plan with one phone, including a first year of DirecTV, costs at least $110 a month and will rise to at least $140 a month after a year because of the DirecTV promotional price. This does not include fees, taxes or the cost of the phone itself.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Unlimited*.
*limitations apply.
I happen to have UDP from 2007, on both my and my wife’s phone. I also have DirectTV, and two kids on T-mobile. It would be nice to bring the whole family together. Something about this whole thing still smells like “It Sucks(TM).”
Smeagol, you always know that AT&T is up to no good. Unfortunately, that is generally true of the other vendors, as well. We are all stuck in Mordor. It is just a matter of how close you are to Mt. Doom.
BoostMobile has unlimited data for 60 dollars a month with no throttling.
Jesus. $110/month? For 1 phone? For the same amount of bandwidth that cost $50 nine years ago?
While the cost for the carriers of providing bandwidth has plummeted since 2007, the price AT&T and friends charge for it has only increased. How long until the FCC actually does something about this?
Bandwidth demands have skyrocketed since 2007.
Amazing how much your carriers charge you for mobile Internet access! Here, in the Republic of Ireland, you can buy – just for €20 – so called “All-You-Can-Eat Data” top-up’s with free 4G access (till June 2016 – than 3G only or 4G for an additional fee) from “Three Ireland” mobile carrier. The top-up rests for 30 days. Unlimited any network texts, unlimited any weekend minutes and unlimited “Three” to “Three” calls comes with the top-up. No data caps. And those are just simple top-up’s! With “plans” they usually add one unicorn per subscriber. 😉
It’s not clear what your bottom line is. A “top up” is €20 and 4G is an additional fee. What is the total cost for one phone with unlimited 4G data access?
and i want to know if the unicorn comes with the standard plan or if you need to “top off” !-)
I use an unlocked iPhone 6+ in Poland with a Play, pay-as-you-go SIM. I average 3-4GB of data a month and pay about $30 every 2-3 months to “top up”. It’s not unlimited but it’s all I need and massively cheaper than the ATT ripoff.
ATT. Still a ripoff, always a ripoff. I dumped them and went with Sprint, got 3 new 6s phones and a $40 cheaper monthly bill with 5GB more. Plus, sprint has wifi calling, ATT does not. They wanted to charge me $70 more and only upgrade 2 of my 3 phones. Why anybody uses ATT is beyond me. I’m just pissed I waited so long. And the ATT network isn’t any better than Sprint.