How AT&T’s New Data Plan Stacks Up to Rivals
AT&T’s data plan for the new iPhone is getting mixed reviews from analysts and consumers alike. The new cap on data transfer might cause phone users to question whether they want to stay with AT&T or switch to another service, even if it means giving up their beloved iPhones.
Here, TechNewsDaily simplifies the plans from each of the major carriers – AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon – to show how they measure up.
Sprint and T-Mobile offer the least expensive plans – $89.99 per month buys you 900 anytime talk minutes (T-Mobile gives 1,000 minutes), plus unlimited texting and data transfer. For the same price and talk minutes, you’ll receive 1,500 text messages and 200 MB of data transfer from AT&T and unlimited text messaging and 25 MB of data transfer on Verizon’s plan.
Verizon also offers an unlimited texting and data transfer plan, but the price tag is a bit higher – $109.98 per month. AT&T’s new data plan only goes up to 2 GB, and doesn’t offer unlimited texting. The price tag: $99.99. (AT&T has pointed out that 98 percent of its iPhone customers use less than 2 GB of data transfer.)
For those users who talk less and data more, AT&T offers a plan with 450 minutes of talk time. The price tag for this plan combined with 1,500 text messages and 2 gigs of data transfer is $79.99.
Finally, AT&T customers that currently have $30 unlimited plans can keep those unlimited plans even when upgrading their devices or extending their contracts (although if you switch to a capped data plan, you cannot go back to the unlimited one).
In the end, the $10-$20 difference between plans may not be as important as the phone selection. For now, the iPhone is solely in the hands of AT&T customers, which could make the cost differences negligible.
