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AT&T Imposes Another $5 Rate Hike On Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ATT is raising the price of its grandfathered unlimited data plans by $5 a month, the second such increase in the past year. The price increase affects longtime mobile customers who have held onto unlimited data plans for years after ATT stopped selling them to new subscribers. The latest price increase was reported by DSLReports yesterday, and ATT confirmed the move to Ars. "If you have a legacy unlimited data plan, you can keep it; however, beginning in March 2017, it will increase by $5 per month," ATT said. The unlimited data price had been $30 a month for seven years, until ATT raised it to $35 in February 2016. The price increase this year will bring it up to $40. That amount is just for data: Including voice and texting, the smartphone plans cost around $90 a month. ATT encouraged customers to move to one of its new plans, most of which have data limits, saying the newer packages "provide several benefits that our legacy unlimited plan doesn't." For example, the newer plans support mobile hotspot connections allowing a phone's Internet service to be shared with another device. ATT had stopped selling unlimited smartphone data to new customers and to customers who are switching plans, but last year introduced a new unlimited plan that's available only to people who also subscribe to DirecTV or U-verse TV.
I was AT&T since before they sold off wireless to Cingular. Got tired of the iPhone and switched to a Nexus late last year, then I bit the bullet and dropped AT&T for Google's Fi service. My only complaint with Fi is that it just works for Nexus and Pixel phones. The service and cost structures are incredibly refreshing (what do you mean I get credit back for unused data and don't get raped for overage charges???).
tl;dr: To hell with AT&T and the rest.
Since I have a Real Computer with Real Internet, I don't use massive amounts of mobile data, so I went with Ting and am pretty happy with the sub-$20 bills so far.
The unlimited plans no longer are capped at 5gb before they throttle you. It's now set around 22gb, and the throttling is only if the cell tower is congested.