U.S. Cellular recently promised to introduce brand new data plans including some unlimited options, and today, the fifth largest wireless carrier in the country delivered on that promise. The new plans are called “Total Plans with No Hidden Fees” and are priced just like U.S. Cellular promised they would be, in addition to being offered with all of the stipulations that were originally talked about.
For starters, the unlimited plans that are the main attraction of the announcement have a hard cap at 22GB. In other words, instead of deprioritizing users when they hit the cap like most carriers do, a U.S. Cellular customer reaching 22GB of data used in a month will find their speeds throttled all the way down to 2G. Since U.S. Cellular does not feature of any sort of zero-rating for content, people who enjoy streaming a lot of content will probably have to carefully watch their consumption, though streaming is currently limited to the 480p resolution. The latter caveat only applies if you take one of the unlimited plans as plans capped at 2GB and 6GB can still stream content at full speeds and in higher resolutions until they hit their limit, at which point they will also be throttled to 2G speeds.
As far as pricing goes, things get cheaper once you add more lines. Unlimited customers going solo will have to pay $60 per month, but a second line drops to $55. From there, a third is $45, and a fourth and any subsequent lines are priced at $40. Due to a special promotion, customers looking to purchase an unlimited plan with four lines can get it for $160, i.e. only $40 per line. For added context, normal pricing would see those customers pay $200. The special deal actually means that the four-line unlimited plan offers a better value than a four-line 6GB plan seeing how both are priced the same. A four-line plan with a 2GB cap is priced at $120, but with the promotional pricing, that’s only $40 cheaper than getting everybody unlimited data. Seeing how not all of the taxes and regulatory fees are included in the pricing shown by U.S. Cellular, you will end up paying just a bit more than what the advertised prices are.