AT&T Introducing Verizon-Style Shared Data Plans

zacharye writes with news of some exciting rate changes for folks on ATTWS. From the article: "AT&T on Wednesday announced the upcoming availability of new shared data plans. Following Verizon's lead, AT&T's new plans will allow subscribers to share data between family members and also between devices. Dubbed 'AT&T Mobile Share' plans, the new offerings start at $40 per month plus $45 per device for unlimited voice minutes and messaging and 1GB of data, and top out at $200 plus $30 per device for unlimited voice and texts plus 200GB of data..." My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return.

Comments

Oy

[Daddy-Oh]

I had high hopes that Verizon's shared data would be the right thing for my family plan. None of need 2GB of data a month - we could easily share that. But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

And, the unlimited voice has no value to me - we never reach our limit on the shared smallest family plan now.

Angry (er).

Re:Oy

[HarrySquatter]

None of need 2GB of data a month - we could easily share that. But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

Because you were naive enough to think these plans were to save you money rather than make the telecoms more money?

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

But, the new plan actually costs significantly more.

That's the idea.

Internally, AT&T executives refer to it as the "Blood from a Stone Plan".

The country's largest ISPs believe that you have too much money and that they deserve what you have worked for. It's what I called "Privatized Class Warfare" and is another of the hallmarks of late-stage capitalism. This phenomenon can be identified when a company decides they are going to charge you significantly more while giving you much less. Another identifying characteristic is that the two or three companies in the respective sector all do it at approximately the same time so they don't have to worry about that inconvenient "competition" that is so destructive to terminal-stage capitalism.

Countdown to AT&T and Verizon merger starts....now.

Re:Oy

[PNutts]

In some cases the full price for a phone without a contract is cheaper.

Re:Oy

[Skarecrow77]

No, they know what we want. They just don't care. They figure if you can afford a smartphone, you can afford damn near whatever they want to charge you.
$40 a month plus $45 a device for 1gb? That's a deal so bad it needs to come with a complimentary tube of KY jelly, yet people are going to pay it, because there are no alternatives (or the alternatives suck).

1gb. seriously 1gb? What is this, 1995? I go through about 200mb a day of wireless data usage, and that's being careful where I visit, using noscript and adblock to keep data usage to a minimum, and generally restraining myself. if I wasn't paying attention, I could do 1gb in less than a half an hour at 4g speeds.

obligatory slashdot analogy:
telco - "Ok, here is your 200mph 4G car. it's going to cost you a damn pretty penny, but you've got it!"
me - "sweet!"
* vroomm 50mph, vrooooommmm 100mph, vrooooooomm 200mph! screeeeeeeeeaaaachhhhalt.*
me - "what the hell? It only worked for 30 minutes, now it doesn't work anymore"
telco - "oh, didn't we tell you? you can only drive at 200mph for 30 minutes a month unless you want to pay us again. pretty much the same ammount. for another 30 minutes."
me - "why would you advertise that your network is that fast if I'm not allowed to go that fast for anything more than a few minutes?"
telco - "you're new here, aren't you? just turn around and bend over."

Re:Oy

[poetmatt]

we're in a near monopoly of only 3 major carriers - and every "minor" carrier is owned by the majors or runs along their networks.

We lack so much competition it's a lie to simply act like it makes a difference at the moment. They need to be regulated into common carrier status instead of abusing it.

To act like rates are going to fix this is to not pay attention to what is causing the rates: the greed/taking advantage of the situation.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

You have no idea what the term capitalism means.

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working.

This is why investors pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than workers. The idea being a pile of money is worth more than the labor of the people who are actually making stuff.

When you actually look at if for a while, you start to see how it's not sustainable and how it will inevitably end with a very few really rich guys and everybody else with very little money or power.

As Merriam Webster puts it,

an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

The main problem being that there is no such thing as a free market. Remember, the people who came up with the idea of capitalism also believed in perpetual motion machines and transmuting lead into gold via purification.

Re:Oy

[poetmatt]

This just in:

existing cell phone plans don't get cheaper with time - they go up with additional fees and cramming.

Re:Oy

[tripleevenfall]

Right, we are all familiar with the model - much like AT&T's previous bait and switch with the data plans.

1. We offer unlimited data!
2. We are introducing limited data plans as an option, unlimited still available!
3. We're phasing out unlimited plans, but users who have an unlimited plan can keep the plan!
4. Users with unlimited plans have to choose a limited plan, but don't worry, very few people exceed it and incurr the pornographic overage fees
5. (over time, content changes requiring users to use more data to get the same content, and fees ratched up 'naturally'

So based on that, the future is....?

1. We offer shared data plans! (if you pay obscene fees that render this a non-money-saver)
2. We're phasing out any other form of data plan.
3. We're doing things to your wallet that you can usually only see in a barnyard, due to your inability to control data usage simultaneously for 5 people.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

That's amazing! I read the definition YOU provided in your comment and came to a completely different conclusion about capitalism. It's almost like you decided to read whatever you wanted... actual words be damned.

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working.

I wonder where those with the money to invest got it? I wonder if they worked for it to start with? No... it must have been given to them by some evil invisible force that's out to get the little man. But wait, some of those with money were the little man at one point... how can this be?

And just what do you think will happen if these people with money (your nemesis) guess wrong about how they should invest their money? What if they put their money to work paying someone (someone like you for example) to do something that the market doesn't want? Their money goes away. It doesn't disappear though... it just goes away from the person who put it to a crappy use and goes to someone who will put it to work doing more sustainable (profitable) things.

I'm on a bit of rant. But it's a rant of grief, not so much anger. The country in which I grew up, the USA (I don't know where you're from), is not what you seem to claim it to be, and it disheartens me to hear comments such as your own - where the big bad world is geared towards crushing those without money. Where those who labor believe that those who pay them are evil. Where those who labor choose to spend their free time watching american idol instead of doing something productive for the economy like starting their own business, reading a book, writing a book, or inventing something useful. A little "bubble gum" time is fine However, if your biggest attempt at contributing to society is getting up and going to work and being pissed at everyone else whose chosen to take risks with their time / money (in order to start a business a pay you to work) then your attempt is lame, and you, sir, are the reason for your own problems.

Re:Oy

[Plekto]

This is also exactly what oil companies do as well.

Sure, there's no actual collusion, but they watch each other minute by minute and move in lock-step to protect their shared interests. Since they have a captive audience, economic theories that you waste your time learning in colleges no longer apply. In the end, those pretty-on-paper theories all fall apart when people get involved and decide to abuse them to their advantage.

Re:Oy

[KingSkippus]

Sure I do. It means you make money by having money, and that having money is worth more than working. This is why investors pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than workers. The idea being a pile of money is worth more than the labor of the people who are actually making stuff.

You just made my day, knowing that there's someone else out there who "gets it." It is a source of endless frustration to me, the notion that a lot people out there have, that making money off of having money should be taxed at a lower rate than actually working. It drives me friggin' nuts when this is pitched as "class warfare" or "wealth envy." It is not wealth envy to expect people to pay at least the same tax rate--possibly even more--on money made off of having money versus actually working for it.

Yes, I do believe that there's class warfare going on, but it's not the lower- or middle class that's instigating it; it's the wealthy who are constantly looking for new ways to get out of paying taxes, getting "bailouts", getting subsidies, all the while complaining about the audacity of a poor person wanting health care.

I know I'll probably be modded down as Flamebait, and truth be known, I probably should be because I know it's a touchy topic. Still, I wanted you to know that you are very, very right and I wish there were more people out there who recognized how insane, unethical, and unsustainable the capital gains tax rate is. (Meanwhile, some people are actually pushing for it to be zero, go figure.)

Re:Oy

[Vancorps]

I like your optimism that the American dream is still alive but you're also delusional if you don't think the lower income people are under full assault right now. Rather than set taxes to pre-Bush era the fight is simply to cut programs that were created and solvent prior to the Bush tax cuts which Obama extended. Given the amont of rhetoric coming from the Republican party which has a significant amount of influence over what is going on these days, I find it hard to just scoff at the idea that lower income people aren't being taken advantage of. When tax disparity is as high as it is these days it's really hard to draw another conclusion.

Also, as someone who started his own business more than a decade ago and I pretty easily state that it is significantly harder to start up and become successful these days. Unless you start with money it is becoming an NBA allstar odds type of game. Sure, it still happens but it's few and far between, like people that drop out of college and become billionaires.

Most of the time big money comes from other big money. Look at yesterdays story about the people behind Dragon Dictate. They got swollowed up by large coprorations that simply raped them. They aren't alone in this practice.

The post-WW2 era was about major prosperity and growth. Since the late 90s it has been about globalizing infrastructure and socializing losses. When you or I make a bad investment we lose our investment, when Sheldon Ayers does, he changes the laws and fixes the reason he didn't make money and then not only loses nothing but gains billions.

Wake up! Rich people aren't evil, they are just given too much power and do what anybody with too much power does.

Re:Oy

[IVI V K]

This is pure collusion, that proves that ATT and Verizon have no intent on competing. If this continues, market regulation or breakup may be required.

Raising the cost of data from $30 for 3GB to $40 for 1GB is a 300% price increase and unacceptable in any mature market. As unlimited text and calling plans become redundant to cheaper internet based services, the mobile companies are trying to lock in current income for specialized services people will no longer need.

AT&T and Verizon have developed these plans to protect themselves from the inevitable switch from charging as much as the market will bear for voice, text or data to all services becoming part of the data stream with the next evolution of LTE. These plans are an attempt to challenge the prospect that they may become "dumb pipe" providers of data in place of more expensive add on services.

Once voice calls are just data streams on the data network, the mobile providers will give you that data for free when using their services, as opposed to charging you for the data if you use skype or another ip phone system. They will still charge you outrageous foreign call rates and international roaming charges when ever possible. This would be a definite violation of network neutrality as they would be providing preferencial treatment to their own, non optional unlimited voice and text plans over competing internet services.

The new share everything plans acknowledge the diminishing importance of voice and text services, by requiring you to buy unlimited service and shifting the current fees for these services to the first GB of data.

Even though you some people may actually pay less under these new plans, they are designed solely to protect loss of income that will result when people no longer need high voice minute plans because the competing data based voice plans will be identical in delivery and quality to the mobile provides plans yet without added rates.

This is a strategy to increase data fees while delivery costs drop to further increase profits while fooling the public into thinking they might be getting a deal.

Re:Oy

[Karlt1]

AT&T and Verizon are making plenty of money - just check their quarterly results. The telecom equipment manufacturers aren't making much.

As far as the "phone manufacturers" - only two of the majors are making any money. Apple only makes most of the industry profits with Samsung making the rest. HTC makes a little.

http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market-in-2012-a-tale-of-two-disruptions/

Re:Oy

[hazydave]

It is the density of towers... but It's not just the towers. AT&T and Verizon both have 850MHz for voice and data, and 700MHz for 4G, which propagate better, not to mention not getting so attenuated by buildings, forests, etc. (AT&T does need 1900MHz for one direction on their 3G connection). Sprint and T-Mo have only the 1900MHz channel for voice and Sprint's 3G. Sprint put WiMax at 2500MHz, which is worse yet... T-Mo's 3G is at 1700MHz and 2100MHz, so less robust. Sprint's putting their LTE at 800MHz, on the old Nextel frequency, so things may eventually get better with them... but that's a couple of years off, I suspect. And data only right now.

AT&T has also had a tower problem in some areas. When Cingular bought AT&T's mobile phone division, they nixed the old DAMPS system and put the whole company on GSM. But DAMPS had better range per cell. So in some areas, you have coverage that's spottier than it was intended to be, simply because of this (I'm sure they filled in extra cells in cities to deal with this, but it's still an issue in rural areas... one of the reasons AT&T drops more calls, the other being issues with the way GSM 2G does cell handoffs).

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

We call this force "inheritance"...

Hate to burst your bubble here, but most millionaires today are self made, first generation. They worked hard to get where they are, many of them "laboring" and saving. According to Thomas J. Stanley's book, "The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy," only 20% of millionaires inherited their riches. The other 80% are what you'd call nouveau riche: first-generation millionaires who earned their cash on their own. Many millionaires simply worked, saved, and lived within their means to generate their wealth -- think accountants and managers: regular people going to work every day. Most millionaires didn't get their riches overnight when a rich relative died -- they worked for the money. Can you believe it? They didn't steal it and they didn't inherit it! Amazing

When Mitt Romney can casually suggest that you make yourself rich by starting a business by borrowing twenty grand from your parents, without even realizing that not everyone has that kind of credit limit at The Bank Of Mom And Dad, we've slipped.

What Romney said was an idea. Many people do have that option... even if not all do. And many of them have the option because mom and dad worked so that their kids might have that option. I think it was a stupid idea either way. Borrowing money is generally asking for trouble. The businesses I've been involved in (all small) have started with nothing but ideas, not cash. They've bootstrapped themselves up to a semblance of success, but by no means make their owners rich - yet. It just means using your time to make you richer as opposed to using it to make someone else richer (staring at the tube - often for a fee).

I was told that all men were created equal, that you shouldn't have more rights just because of who your parents were. I thought this place was founded on that idea. Then I realized we only got rid of the formal titles.

So the work you do to make better lives for your family should be reset to zero when you die? Please tell me you've got some way to make it so that when I eventually get rich by working my ass off I have some way to leave it to my kids (or whoever I choose to leave it to). I already teach my kids how to live within their means and use their resources wisely. I'd trust them with the money much more than I'd trust my great uncle sam or any of those who choose to depend on him for their well being.

Re:Oy

[Billly Gates]

I noticed there are people in two camps under 35.

Those who got in when the economy was hot and kept their jobs and do not see a problem and think people are poor because of poor choices they made and are indifferent. Those who graduated in 2009 (like me!) who paid 3x as much for student loans from the same school the other group paid for 10 years earlier who HR considers unhirable because they work at Target and not in their field (not me thank god but many exists that I feel sorry for).

It is those 2 extremes I see. If the economy improves these adults working at Target with their degrees can get back to work and then build their wealth. Part of the problem is not the rich. It is just in this new economy if you are not good you are finished!

In the old days you could buy a house and live a comfortble lower middle class life with a car and even go on vacations with just a higsh school diploma. Today a degree does not get a free ticket anymore. You have to be great and be given a chance.

Re:Oy

[Mike Buddha]

At least the ATT plan looks cheaper than Verizon though, because if you're single you pay $40 a month. Verizon makes single persons pay the full $90 as if you were a full family. :-o

Uh, a single person on ATT's shared plan pays $95 for their phone and 1gb of data. Verizon charges $90 on their Share Everything plan for the same service level.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

I don't think I'm delusional

No one delusional thinks he's delusional.

Re:Oy

[PoolOfThought]

99 weeks of unemployment would vary depending on your original salary and the state you live in, but it would be closer to $40k (or $20k/yr) than it would be to $100k.

I already addressed the math error. The original comment sat there for 4 hours without anyone saying anything. I responded to my own comment pointing out my own error and 1/2 hour later here comes a message telling me my math was wrong.

What I always find interesting when the topic comes up is that everyone seems to think they know what the riches "fair share" is. What is it? Is it somehow more (percentage wise) than everyone elses? The answer is that the value is going to be different in everyone's opinion. The "not rich" sit around and talk about it like there's some definite hard value that should be imposed on the rich like some constant of the universe that is being ignored to humanities peril. The rich know that their fair share of taxes is whatever the law says it is. So right now, they're paying their "fair share". When the tax cuts expire they'll be paying their "fair share" then. If new cuts are made then it'll be the same again. The difference we'll see is how much people are willing to pay in taxes before they say... screw it... it's safer to just not risk my money and not earn anything and not pay any taxes.

You can say that something is in jeopardy without saying it's under full assault. The reason I even got into this conversation is because a commenter tried to distort capitalism by pointing to the few crappy outlier aspects. Then we got a follow up where someone claimed that the rich are assaulting the poor. My view is that the rich are simply living and the poor are simply living. But fear and envy has people lashing out with a class warfare type attitude saying it's that guys fault because they are either greedy or lazy. Understand that I'm not calling either group greedy or lazy... I'm just saying what the arguments tend to be once the rhetoric gets to flying.

Everybody wants to blame. I hear it was Obama's healthcare. I hear it was the wars by Bush. Or it was Clinton's homes initiatives. Or it was Reagan did this. Or it was Carter did that. We've had people that have thrived through all of these. And I'm pretty sure we've had people that blamed those that thrived through all of these. What's happening in Washington is just very likely to not affect your day to day ability to get ahead. And how much taxes the rich pay above what they are already paying isn't going to be the difference maker. That's my point.

They weren't born and raised in Uganda. Well, probably not anyway... maybe one was... wouldn't that blow your theory! Or would they be the 1%? And if so... would that be bad... seems that's the 1% we want! In any case, they are american citizens and the american right to pursue happiness is theirs. How they would have performed in Uganda is completely off topic as I've never claimed these people to be "better" than anyone else - but they also shouldn't be punished or blamed for succeeding.

Re:Oy

[PopeRatzo]

Capital Gains: Corporate Income Tax is paid, then Capital Gains Tax is paid, then the remaining is Spending Money*

Now now...I take the money I made last year via capital gains (the money I worked for before I retired in 2007 is already spent, let's say). I have NOT "already paid taxes on it when it was earned" except for the 15% capital gains tax (which can easily be reduced). I invest it in derivative instruments - options, like that. None of that money ever gets invested in a corporation or in any way goes to "creating jobs". Derivatives account for several times the amount of money in the actual equities market and it's just a betting pool.

I do nothing but listen to a radio show in the morning and make a few trades. I don't use money "that has already been taxed" and I don't pay corporate taxes. I'm paying half the tax rate as the guy who picks up my garbage, except I can use IRAs and other tax exempt instruments to avoid it. Now, I have a limit to how much I can put into my IRA (yet, somehow Mitt Romney has an IRA worth over $100,000,000.00).

Don't tell me that there's is anything like a good reason why the money I make in those 20 minutes I spend at 6am listening to a radio show and making a few trades online deserves to be treated better tax-wise than the money made by a guy who is out in 105 F weather picking up garbage cans all day.

The worst thing about the current metastasized capitalism we have now is what it does to the moral compass of people like you. It appears that you just can't tell the difference between right and wrong any more.

Re:Oy

[KingSkippus]

"TPC estimates show that 61 percent of those that owed no federal income tax in a given year are working households. These people do pay payroll taxes as well as federal excise taxes, and, as noted, state and local taxes.

Ergo, the statement that "approx 49% of the US citizens that pay 0 federal tax" is not just a gross misrepresentation in leaving out state and local taxes, it's an outright lie.

There's a pretty good likelihood that they're also paying into the Social Security system as well as paying federal taxes on things like gasoline, telephone service, etc. And while you completely ignore things like state and local taxes, the poor are keenly feeling the sting of sales taxes that, in some places, push upwards of 10% even on necessities like food and clothing--a regressive tax that impacts them far more harshly than the rich.

So yeah, take your "49% pay no taxes" bullshit to someone more sympathetic. I'm sure Mitt Romney will lend you an ear to cry to.

Sad, but we let them do this.

[Tufriast]

AT&T was shitty before this point, but now they are no longer even TRYING to mask the fuckening. What's worse is that they have court backing. You can thank all of the "conservative" leaning judges who side with businesses from a legal angle that made this happen. I'd like to point out that left leaning judges are also a bad thing in the long haul. Hell, judges should lean neither way. In any event, a special thanks to the American people for getting us raped and smiling while doing it.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[alen]

so go prepaid. you can get "unlimited" data for $30 a month if you're willing to buy your own phone. and with the iphone about to have its 6th generation released there isn't much different every year so it's not like you have to run out and buy a new phone every year to keep up with specs

most games will play on 2-3 year old phones
email, evernote and facebook don't need dual core
in fact 99% of what the phone does is OK on a single core. i could play MP3's 15 years ago on mobile CPU's so it's not like you need multiple cores to read email and listen to music.

don't listen to the idiots at anandtech who keep dreaming that you need the latest and greatest to do simple things and you will have money. these were the same idiots who were telling people 10 years ago that you needed a $300 graphics card just to run the Windows GUI "fast"

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[orthancstone]

don't listen to the idiots at anandtech who keep dreaming that you need the latest and greatest to do simple things and you will have money. these were the same idiots who were telling people 10 years ago that you needed a $300 graphics card just to run the Windows GUI "fast"

You'll have to point me to this article on Anandtech that states everyone must go out and purchase the latest and greatest. Until you do so, I'm just going to presume the only idiot here is you for trashing a site that specializes in reviewing new equipment!

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[CTU]

You do know the comment about 'outdated devices' only meant you don't need to buy a new phone every year or two just because there is something new out. You can get that nexus and as long as it don't break, will give you years of use and not need to be tossed out because something slightly better comes out in a few months.

Re:Sad, but we let them do this.

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, your smug "scare quote laden" impressions are incorrect. Go look at StraightTalk, or the prepay plan from T-Mobile that has 100 minutes and unlimited SMS and data. Sure, it's TMo so you don't have 3G out in Centralia, PA. As Winston Wolfe said, "move out of the sticks, gentlemen!"

So people wont move out of town because it has been on fire for 50 years , but will move if it doesnt have 3G coverage. Sounds typical, and sounds like a lot of my efforts at SimCity.

prepaid here i come

[alen]

i have a 4 line family plan on AT&T with 2 of them out of contract or very close to being out of contract

a few months ago i assumed i would just add more devices to the plan and they would use the existing 4GB of data my wife and I have and half of which we don't use. my father in law wants an iphone but not the extra $25 a month. and i could have made my next ipad a LTE ipad.

except now i pay more for 1GB of data instead of the current 4GB I have and have to pay a lot for unlimited minutes and texts which are almost free for AT&T to carry

smart talk can't get here fast enough since my wife's iphone 4 contract expires next month

Saves nothing, really.

[DWMorse]

In my case, 4 friends and myself all have smartphones together on my plan. Since nobody really talks on their phones much (what is this, 1992?) we share a 700 minute plan, and have something like 4,500 rollover minutes. But we do use a good bit of data and billions of texts are sent every month. (3 women.)

So I did some quick calculation: $90 a month for the 6GB plan with all the unlimited texting and etc. 5 smartphones at $35 a piece, yielding monthly total of $265 before taxes. Right now, our bill is $280 after taxes. That's $56 a month per person. Not so bad. The new plans would put us at $53 per person. /shrug. So we gain unlimited talk time we don't use, save $3 per person a month. Not terribly motivating.

Re:Saves nothing, really.

[h4rr4r]

You think there will be less than $15 in taxes and "fees"?

I bet that $265 becomes $300 after all is said and done.

AT&T bugs me

[medcalf]

Carriers incur no cost for tethering (and soon for Fcae Time over cell), because the data used still comes out of the amount paid for. Carriers incur no cost for messages, because they are part of the phone's sync to the tower, or in the case of iMessages, come out of the data plan. But AT&T charges (very high) fees for messages and tethering, and soon will for Face Time apparently, in addition to the data that they use being paid for. Thing is, I'd use far more text messages, and periodically use tethering, and periodically use Face Time over cell when it's available, and all of these would drive up my data usage and thus make AT&T money. But instead, I just don't use the features, which is slight inconvenience to me, but on net must be a heck of a hit to AT&T shareholders, because their company is leaving money on the table by continuing to insist on pricing services like it was the mid-1980s.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[MobyDisk]

Carriers incur no cost for messages, because they are part of the phone's sync to the tower,

I thought the same way until a previous Slashdot comment explained how this works in detail. While the text messages use the same packet format as the phone's sync to the tower, it still causes additional packets, and bigger packets. So the bandwidth is not free. It would be like sending an email by embedding it inside DNS requests. Yes, you need to make DNS requests anyway, but sending an email through them would not make the bandwidth free.

Ultimately, this does not change your point though, it is just a nitpick. Their policies are ridiculous. Charging for Face Time over cell networks is an awesome example of why we need network neutrality. (Sorry Ron Paul - I like you but you are wrong on this one!) If I were Verizon, I would have my marketing department jump all over this one. I can use my bandwidth for whatever I want on my Verizon + Android combo.

Re:AT&T bugs me

[TheSpoom]

You are not everybody. The sooner we get this, the sooner we can stop worrying. People don't know and don't care that texting and tethering are effectively free to the carrier, and because of this the carrier charges fees and 99.999% of customers are none the wiser.

You want to change things? Blast your message out to everyone that it's cost-neutral. Here's the thing, though: You won't reach the vast majority of people, and those you reach are likely to completely ignore you. Inertia is a powerful force, and people will fight to maintain their ignorance. Understand this, and you'll understand why political leaders act like morons: because most people don't want to talk about real issues, they want to be entertained and they want to participate in a fight.

Sharing?

[mister2au]

"My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return"

Surely you get connection to the network and unlimited calls/text for the $30-$45 per device (even if you assume you no extra data because you could have used it all on the first device).

Seems reasonable if an unlimited call/text plan is normally $70 for a single device.

Re:Sharing?

[CanHasDIY]

"My favorite part is where you pay per-device and get nothing in return"

Surely you get connection to the network and unlimited calls/text for the $30-$45 per device (even if you assume you no extra data because you could have used it all on the first device).

Seems reasonable if an unlimited call/text plan is normally $70 for a single device.

$40/mo bill for services + $45/mo premium for phone ownership = $85/mo (for a single device)

This is to the exclusion of all the excise fees, taxes, and other miscellaneous bullshit telcos charge customers; I foresee a single device costing well over $100/mo on this new plan.

Re:Sharing?

[Mitreya]

Nearly no one wants an unlimited call/txt plan. 100 of each would be more than enough for me.

You are forgetting young people (teenagers, mostly). Each of my nephews and my younger sister can go through a 20-30 texts per day without trying hard.

Re:Sharing?

[Tauvix]

$40/mo bill for services + $45/mo premium for phone ownership = $85/mo (for a single device)

This is to the exclusion of all the excise fees, taxes, and other miscellaneous bullshit telcos charge customers; I foresee a single device costing well over $100/mo on this new plan.

This plan isn't for someone with a single phone. Nowhere has anyone said they're eliminating Individual plans, or existing family talk plans. This is for large groups, with a diverse set of devices.

If you have a single phone, stick with your Individual plan. If you have 2-3 people, stick with a Family Talk plan.

Got to love that competition

[Dyinobal]

Ya got to love this competition that drives these major cellular companies to offer prices that are very competitive and it seems they are always trying to out do each other with their outrageous deals.

$15 a GB for going over??

[Joe_Dragon]

But when you have a phone on it's own it's only $10 a GB.

this is like costco 10 years ago

[alen]

i remember the inflation of the early part of the last decade. i used to shop at costco and all the food and other things you bought on a regular basis would go up in price every month.

but things like a 5 year supply of toilet cleaner or a 10 year supply of plastic wrap stayed the same. i still have a 3000 foot roll of plastic wrap i bought at costco like 7 years ago.

its crazy, some stuff at costco will outlast marriages

same here, the cheap stuff like minutes and text AT&T is giving A LOT of for less. the value which is the data they are charging an arm and a leg for. and if i have 4GB why am i still going to pay $20 for a tablet on my plan even if i don't use any data on it?

Apple and Samsung are at fault too. $700 for a new phone? they are living on fat margins which are about to come crashing down as people go prepaid and keep their phones as long as a laptop

I'm glad I switch carriers

[madhatter256]

For individual users this "bucket" plan is similar to the old plan. But seriously, this stuff is getting expensive with the big carriers. I switched from ATT to verizon years ago because I hated getting dropped calls. Never happened again in Verizon. Then I got their unlimited data and a smart phone. It was awesome and fast. Then they started capping their data and I upgraded the phone which did not grandfather me into their unlimited data plan. That's when things started to down hill... very fast.

That's when I realized I was paying way too much. I was paying $80/month for 2gig data, 350minutes and 500 txt message limit. I could pay over $100 for unlimited texting alone but everything else the same.

It was getting ridiculous and 3G was just getting slower for me because verizon would cap your speed if you went over 200mb!!! They said it was to help with people from going over the 2gig limit and to get the full speed again you have to go through a month where your data usage was less than 200mb... which basically meant you had to not use your phone at all for a month and still pay for it...

So, I switched to Virgin Mobile.

Yes, I paid $300 for my HTC Evo V 4g 3D phone, but the fact that it comes with no contract and a minimum $35/month bill for 350 minutes and unlimited texting and data* *they cap the speed if you go over 2.5gigs but once you pay that $35 phone card the limit is reseted. If you plan on having the phone for 2 years, that totals to $12.5 a month for paying the phone, which makes $35 + $12.5 = $47.5, which is still far cheaper than any plan out there from ATT, Sprint or Verizon (and TMobile). Plus you can buy the prepaid cards and not pay tax on them, so that's a true, flat $35/month payment.

Allow?

[EzInKy]

Since when has it been disallowed for family members to share data? Isn't exchanging and preserving information the defining charcteristic of humankind? Perhaps if we are lucky they'll allow us to walk upright as well.

Re:This from the...

[jd2112]

..."only network where your iPhone gets unlimited data," network (except for FaceTime.)

All those electrons must be costing AT&T something fierce for them to charge for their total movement. Makes me wonder when the electron pool will run out.

You're thinking of Sprint. They still have unlimited data plans. And as long as they do they will have me as a customer. I rarely go over 2-3 GB/month but I like that when I have Pandora running I'm not worrying about how much I am paying to listen to each song should I go over my limit.

Most likely going to save me money

[Tauvix]

This is most likely going to save me money. I can see where someone with only 3 phones on their account potentially wouldn't save any money with this, but I have 6 on mine. Because of existing AT&T rules, I can only have up to 5 phones per voice plan. So I currently end up with 2 voice plans.

By the time I'm done, we have the following structure:
$90/month plan w/ 1 additional $10/month phone (1400 minutes, and yes, the people on this plan regularly get close to that)
$70/month plan w/ 1 additional $10/month phone (700 minutes)
5 $30/month unlimited data plans (the average usage per month over the last year being about 1.2GB per month, per user)
1 $25/month 3GB plan
2 $30/month family unlimited texting/mobile-to-any-mobile plans.

Before taxes and add-ons like phone insurance, and my company discount, I currently pay $415/month.

By switching to the new structure it'd look like this (before taxes, add-ons, and discount):
$120 10GB/month plan (including unlimited voice and texting)
6 $30/month phone connection fee

$300/month. I'm going to save $115/month by switching to these plans, and if 10GB/month isn't enough, I can upgrade to the 15GB/month plan for another $40, and STILL save a bunch.

Is this a good deal for everyone? No. But in my situation, I believe it will be a good deal for my family (yes, everyone on my plan is related to me) of all adults, who are mostly around WiFi, half of whom are power users, and half of whom are normal users.

Also, before anyone pops up with "You should go prepaid!" I looked into going prepaid. While certainly it would work for 1 or 2 of my family members, the coverage for Sprint (which Virgin rides on) is crap in my area, and some of my family regularly travels to Canada, which - the last time i checked - is problematic. Some of that may have changed (certainly not the Sprint coverage - people complain constantly in my office), I admit, but I appear to be one of the few people with AT&T who has never experienced a problem with customer service, coverage, or data speeds.

The new chocolate ration

[swb]

Obviously the chocolate ration is being increased again. Last year it was 30 grams, this year it is 25 grams.

Competition as a cost control mechanism is dead

[anomaly0617]

The whole point of a competitive marketplace is to keep costs low. In America this concept is dead. When Verizon put out their Shared plan I looked at it and thought it was outrageous, but that AT&T would offer something a little lower and the cost would eventually drop. But it looks to me like AT&T mirrored Verizon's Share Everything plan with a change here or there. So what's the point in competition if all the participants agree to gouge the customer? It seems to me like it's time for a government breakup of the large carriers, similar to what happened to the Bells in the 80's.