AT&T has announced that it will soon be eliminating several of the affordable data plans that are part of he GoPhone prepaid package. The change will officially happen on June 20th. AT&T does say, however, that it has plans to replace the GoPhone data plans coming in a few weeks, but would not specify the pricing tiers and amount of data they would offer, only saying there would be a “variety or plans.”
“We’re making some changes to our AT&T GoPhone prepaid plans to simplify our offers and better align with what customers are choosing and telling us they want,” the company said in a statement to CNET. “We’ve begun letting customers know about the changes in advance, and we’ll have more information on new, additional plan options soon.”
The GoPhone $25 monthly plan currently offers unlimited text messages and 250 minutes of calling, and also has the option of adding on 50MB of data a month for an additional $5 a month. Other options include a 200MB plan for $15, and a 1GB plan for $25. After these changes, the only plan available will be the $5, 50MB option, which almost anyone with a smartphone will blow through almost immediately.
The $50 a month GoPhone plan, which includes unlimited talk and unlimited text, also requires a data plan. After these changes are made, however, these specific options will no longer be available. For the time being, users on the $50 plan will not have any data option at all to choose from.
The next step up is $65 a month and includes unlimited talk and unlimited text, as well as 1GB of data bundled in. Thankfully, it looks like this plan will go unchanged.
While AT&T has almost always been more interested in the two-year contract than the prepaid market, with carriers like T-Mobile marketing contract-free devices, AT&T is obviously looking to make some changes to their lineup to perhaps entice people considering T-Mobile’s philosophy to come to AT&T. Though, the GoPhone brand only supports low-end phones at the moment, AT&T has been testing a new program called Aio Wireless in select markets that includes the iPhone 5 as a prepaid.
Are you a GoPhone customer that is disappointed in this change? Let us know down in the comments!
Source: CNET