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AT&T Is Boosting Data Plans, Dropping Overage Fees (reuters.com) 71

Posted by BeauHD from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: ATT Inc, the No. 2 U.S wireless provider, said on Wednesday that it would roll out a new data plan that does away with overage fees and reduces data speeds for wireless customers who surpass their data allowance. Beginning Sunday, customers can choose the new Mobile Share Advantage plan and pay for extra data, if needed, or work with slower data speeds instead of paying for overages, the company said in a statement. Its current plan includes a $5 data overage charge per 300 megabytes on its 300-megabyte plan and $15 per 1 gigabyte on other plans. ATT has also revised prices and data bucket sizes. For instance, its larger 25-gigabyte plan now costs $190 per month for four smartphone lines. It previously cost $235. All the new plans include an access charge of $10 to $40 per month for each device, ATT said. The new plans will continue to have features such as unlimited text and talk and rollover data. Plans above 10 gigabytes also include unlimited talk and text to Mexico and Canada and no roaming charges in Mexico. Last month, Verizon introduced a new "Safety Mode" for its data plans that similarly throttles customers who exceed their monthly allotment to avoid overages. While Verizon charges customers on lower tier plans for the feature, ATT notes that it does not apply any extra charges.
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AT&T Is Boosting Data Plans, Dropping Overage Fees More

AT&T Is Boosting Data Plans, Dropping Overage Fees

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  • Overages? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:05PM (#52721727)
    And here I am, having been an unlimited-everything T-Mobile customer for the better part of a decade...

    • If I could get T-Mobile in Alaska... I would. Sigh.......

    • Re:Overages? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by dj245 ( 732906 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:35PM (#52721873)

      And here I am, having been an unlimited-everything T-Mobile customer for the better part of a decade...

      Several of the MVNO [wikipedia.org]'s using AT&T's own network have offered "unlimited" (usually capped 4G + unlimited 3G) for several years. Their network could obviously support the traffic. The only reason AT&T didn't until now was because they could get away with it. I guess the competition finally forced their hand.

      • Re:Overages? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by FrankHaynes ( 467244 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @06:32PM (#52722513)

        T-Mobile is good for you.

        Until you leave the city or the interstate highway.

        • Hence for the vast majority of people who live near a freeway or city it's perfect. Judging by the costs in this summary my plan is saving me over $1000/year compared to ATT (I'm on MetroPCS), and my phone works just fine thank you very much.

          • My wife and I dropped our 160/month and now pay roughly 64/month on a group plan with a bunch of family and friends. We take half of the savings and put it away for new phones/phone repair etc. The other 1/2 goes into monthly savings account.
            Works well for us and we save about 1100 or so each year. Works very well for us and it seems like it is fairly inexpensive for what we do.
            Glad ATT is dropping rates... now maybe we can say a bit more.

        • I had Tmobile for about 12 years. It was great and my wife's verizon would conk out all of the time while we were traveling. I even seemed to get reception where nobody else did.

          Alas we moved to an area where TMobile works, but didn't have a presence so I couldn't seem to figure out how to get my messages.
          Now we are on AT&T. Works well and have a cheap group plan for about 32 bucks a line with data currently... soon to be less.

          I suppose now that they are dropping further we will have to figure out how t

        • Yeah I always hear that from verizon customers, especially when they say "it doesn't work over in bumblefuck nowhere" and I'm like "well, I don't ever go there so I'd rather just pay less than half of what you're paying and have it work everywhere I intend on being." That, and where I work I seem to get a better signal than anybody on AT&T or Verizon (and Sprint users get shit slow service no matter where they are.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )
          Only place I've ever had a problem with it, the other drivers with broken vehicles at the same place also had problems. We all hit some debris and punctured tires. No one had cell service and there were other companies represented.
  • Where the industry is going seems rather obvious. Take away Unlimited as well as NO-data plan and have everyone pay for a Mediocre data caps that ensure demanding streaming services can't be sued. That would force them to spend money upgrading their networks

    • Re: The bottom line (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @05:04PM (#52722013)

      Not quite, and what's going on here is actually pretty insidious.

      Verizon has attempted to launch their own streaming video service called go90. They want to be a competitor to other streaming video services. They also want to force everyone onto metered data plans that charge very expensive overages. However, go90 is zero rated. There's also what's called FreeBee data, in which businesses can pay for their content to be zero rated.

      One of these is a pretty clear antitrust violation. Verizon is using their position as a carrier to gain an advantage with go90 over other streaming video services. The other is very close to paid prioritization.

      Whether content is zero rated or not doesn't change the actual amount of bandwidth consumed. Watching 100 GB of Netflix uses the same amount of wireless bandwidth as 100 GB of go90. If network congestion was really as severe as it's made out to be, carriers couldn't afford to zero rate any content that is a large amount of data.

  • Can we say... MODEM speed? (Score:3)

    by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:10PM (#52721757)

    "...all data usage will be reduced to a maximum of 128 kbps for the rest of their bill cycle."

    Does it also make the sound of an analog modem establishing a connection every time you send or receive data?

    I think I'd rather pay the overage fee...

    • What kind of analog dialup modem were you using that could hit 128 Kbps?

      • My old dial-up ISP offered a service where you could use two modems, and dial the ISP to double your speed for an extra 5 dollars a month. Not quite 128 kbps mind you, but getting close.

        I know that modems topped off at 56K, but compared to modern broadband speeds, 128K does almost feel modem-slow!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geek ( 5680 )

      "...all data usage will be reduced to a maximum of 128 kbps for the rest of their bill cycle."

      Does it also make the sound of an analog modem establishing a connection every time you send or receive data?

      I think I'd rather pay the overage fee...

      128k was ISDN speed. 56k was modem.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gmack ( 197796 )
        Actually 128k was dual channel ISDN. Single channel was 64k.

      • Re:Can we say... MODEM speed? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:43PM (#52721921)

        I should have said nearly modem like speed, yeah, my trusty U.S. Robotics 56K never got THAT fast. There were days I sure wish somehow it would.

        My first upgrade to the world of DSL was 320K and that did feel like ridiculous speed. Now my cable company offers 1 gig plans... that's just ludicrous speed!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Calydor ( 739835 )

      In Germany it gets throttled to 64 kbps. Be thankful for the FULL ISDN experience.

    • I've hit my cap several times and gone to the T-Mobile version of this throttled back speed mechanism. It is still usable for general web. If you need streaming video, pay the overage; otherwise just don't be so twitchy.

      • Was T-Mobile's throttled speed limit also 128K? Just wondering, I can't get their service here.

        • T-Mobile used to throttle you back to "2G", which they've killed off (or are almost done killing off).
          So T-Mobile now just throttles your speed to some undefined level.

        • It seems to be dynamic. Once the network icon said '3G' and another time it was '2G'. Probably if you're in an area that still has 2G around, that's what you get.

          Of course, all this aside, ATT still isn't very friendly to international travel. Earlier this year with T-Mobile I got a text message after arriving in Beijing: "Welcome to China, you get unlimited text and 2G data" as included with my basic plan and it worked great. The best part was that it tunneled somehow through the Great Firewall. Google, et

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Morel ike ISDN.

  • Europe does it better.. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I'm not saying this in a "we're better than you" sort of way, but it really astounds me how the consumers get screwed over so much in the USA. Whether it's phone bills, health care insurance, cable companies or the dozen other topics. You lead the world in so many ways but seem to defend big business that rapes the general public in so many ways. Unfortunately with "lobbying" so inherent it may only get worse.

    • Re:Europe does it better.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by npslider ( 4555045 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:54PM (#52721971)

      You lead the world in so many ways

      Sadly, it's not the American people leading, but the over sized government-industrial complex that feeds off of them,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      People are afraid to be accountable, rather then get the government services they want, they would rather let someone dictate what they get and how much, and it better be more then that poor (or non-white).

  • Access charges are data rape (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ITRambo ( 1467509 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @04:46PM (#52721935)
    Subscribers pay for a service. An access charge to let them actually use the service should be illegal as it lets the provider advertise a false bottom line price, while putting the add-on access charge in fine print that many people don't notice. No thanks, AT&T or Verizon for that matter.
    • the access charge is for talk/text if you have a dumb phone. the rest is for data

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by swalve ( 1980968 )
      The access charge is more of a per-line charge. Shouldn't it cost more to have 50 phones on one account than just one?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pnutjam ( 523990 )
      Phone companies should advertise the price they charge, period. The prepaid phones say $40 / month and it's $40. The contract phone companies say $40 and end up charging $53.17.

  • Every night, before I go to sleep, I hope and pray to the PTBs that Google will add AT&T to Project Fi's list of carriers. There's a section of the desert between Vegas and LA that is useless on TMo/Sprint/USCellular. Adding AT&T to Fi (and possibly iPhone support for Fi) with decent marketing $ behind it would be the end of direct-from carrier services as we know it here in the U.S.. Needs to happen.

    -SoulMaster

  • really a price increase (Score:4, Informative)

    by known_coward_69 ( 4151743 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @05:48PM (#52722271)
    they are dropping the data charges but raising the access charge per line by $5. on my 6 line account it would mean $20 less for data but $30 more for access charges which would be a price increase

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ScooterComputer ( 10306 )

      Same here. The 128Kbps MAX is a joke unworthy of a $5 a month "penalty". I especially like how AT&T tries to wrap the same $5 fee as Verizon's "Safety Mode" as "We're not doing what Verizon is doing. We don't charge you!" Uh huh. And both of them sitting on this 128kbps thing like a badge of honor. 128Kbps is all but unusable. I'd like to see Randall Stephenson do a John Legere and live for a week on 128Kbps data. If he can do it for a day, I'll get off my high horse. (He wouldn't be able to, so, no wor

      • I've lived through 128k cellular data for a few years. It is still quite useful.

        I can send iMessages, get my email, send email, and sync my newsreader.

        It will also allow my devices to be tracked if lost or stolen.

        I would MUCH rather be throttled for a couple days if I've gone over by accident than be charged when I don't NEED the speed most of the time.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by b0bby ( 201198 )

          Yeah, I have Cricket & my kids regularly use up all their data before the end of the month (I never do, so we stay on the lower level plan). 128k is what they get throttled to, and it means that they can't watch youtube etc, but they can stream Pandora just fine and do most everything else they want. I can remember being jealous of people who had an ISDN line back in the day, so I don't feel too bad for them being restricted to that speed on their pocket super computers.

    • "but raising the access charge per line by $5"

      My access charge is currently $25 and it would go to $20.

  • This is actually relevant information in the industry, not marketing. It's true because we reported it as news and we aren't in any way incompetent or corrupt

  • I'm on MetroPCS. $40/mo for unlimited data, talk, texts. That's the same as ATT's "access fee???"
  • From 2004 to today I have been using AT&T for my off site instrumentation systems upgrading when needed. I have hundreds of systems. Over the last 6 years they have been gouging customers, including my company, in overages, very poor service, and over charges. In fact we are asking for around $20,000 in over payments to be returned to us. After submitting all the obvious documentation showing their errors over time, they stopped working with us and have started to ignore us. Now I have a lawyer doi

  • ...back to unlimited plans, driven by competition continues.

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