AT&T stopped offering an unlimited data plan years ago, and starting next month, folks that are still on the grandfathered rate plan will have to pay more if they want to keep it. Soon, though, AT&T customers not on that grandfathered plan will be able to get unlimited data, too.
AT&T has announced that starting tomorrow, January 12, it will begin offering a new plan that includes unlimited talk, text, and data. Pricing will be $100 per month for the first smartphone and $40 per month for each additional phone. AT&T will give you the fourth smartphone free, though, making the price for four unlimited lines $180 per month after the fourth line bill credit, which will appear in 2 monthly bill cycles.
If you’d like to add non-smartphone devices to the unlimited plan, you can do so. Tablets can be added at a rate of $40 per month, but if you don’t think that you need unlimited data on your slate, you can get 1GB each month for $10. Watches and “select connected devices” can be added for $10 per month, and basic/messaging phones carry an monthly access fee of $25.
Finally, AT&T Unlimited Plan customers can add unlimited talk and text as well as 1GB of data usage in Mexico for an additional $10 per month.
There is one catch to note with AT&T’s new unlimited plan. To get it, you’ll need to be a DIRECTV or U-Verse TV subscriber. The plan will be available to both new and existing customers on AT&T, DIRECTV, and U-Verse TV, and AT&T has special offers for DIRECTV/U-Verse TV subs that sign up for wireless service or vice versa.
It’s kind of crazy to see AT&T launching a new Unlimited Plan in 2016, years after killing off its original data plan. Of course, it’s unlikely that every smartphone user on AT&T will sign up for the new Unlimited Plan like they did with the old one. Not only does AT&T have more than one data plan option now, but I doubt that every AT&T smartphone user has or wants to sign up for TV service through AT&T. If you do have DIRECTV or U-Verse TV, though, soon you could also have a bottomless bucket of bytes on your smartphone.
Are you going to sign up for AT&T’s new Unlimited Plan?