AT&T has announced a change to its monthly plans, which will come into effect on Sunday, August 21. The plans have changed name to ‘Mobile Share Advantage’ and offer customers a range of data allowances and up to ten lines; there are unlimited calls and minutes for each line. Prices start at $30 for the basic 1 GB plan, but customers need to add an “access charge” for devices added. For full priced devices and those bought through AT&T Next or customer-provided handsets, this equates to $20 a month but the price ranges from $10 up to $40.
AT&T’s claim is that their new plans give customers more for their money and in some cases, this is true: the most popular 15 GB plan was $100 a month but the closest plan to this is the 16 GB one, which is $10 less a month. Plan data allowances run to 200 GB shared between those ten lines. AT&T have revised their 25 GB and higher plans with a new 25 GB plan for $190 for 4 smartphones, previously $235. There’s also a new 30 GB plan at $215 for 4 smartphones, down from $285 a month. However, the least expensive plan at $30 now comes with just 1 GB of data rather than 2 GB.
The most significant news here is that AT&T have removed overage fees at long last. The network will no longer charge customers an additional $15 for every gigabyte they run over their allowance but will instead throttle data connection speeds down to 128 kbps. Customers can still pay for more high speed data, but AT&T’s billing systems will no longer assume that this is the case. This capped data allowance will reduce bill shock moments and unlike some of Verizon’s plans, AT&T include the overuse protection as standard and do not charge extra for this. It is a welcome move but it’s two years after T-Mobile US stopped overuse charges. Other plan features include bundled mobile hotspot use, rollover data and unlimited texting to over 120 countries. All of these AT&T plans include unlimited calls and texts from the United States to either Canada or Mexico, and for those customers on the 10 GB plan or higher they will receive free roaming in Mexico (this is set at 15 GB for the current plan as of the time of writing). You can find out more about the new plan specifics by heading through the source link below.