AT&T posted in internal memos, over the past 24 hours, that the company will be increasing its handset upgrade fee to $36. This is double the previous upgrade fee, which was $18. It also matches the standard activation fee of $36 for new customers.
The carrier cites the increasing costs of handsets in making the change. However, the change is more likely due to customers being trapped in dwindling options, and an industry set on retaining customers, over creating competitive churn.
Much of this situation can likely be attributed to AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile all dropping their unlimited data plans. Overage rates can mean going one kilobyte over a data cap can cost a customer anywhere from $15 to $100 on new plans from AT&T and Verizon. As such, customers are reluctant to change carriers, because they will lose their unlimited grandfathered plans.
T-Mobile has already begun throttling customers to 2G-era speeds if they exceed 2 GB per month in most cases, 3 GB on some alternative plans. Verizon will throttle any 3G customer that exceeds 2 GB, when the user is accessing an impacted cell site. Verizon customers with a 4G LTE smartphone are not throttled. Only Sprint does not throttle or cap, but makes customers agree that they reserve the right to do so in the future, in their terms and conditions.
AT&T has throttled customers in many regions to 2 GB, but claims it is based on region. Some of those regions do not match AT&T’s previously-defined territories, meaning that customers have no way of clearly knowing what the data cap is before being throttled.
One area of relief that customers may find is in the prepaid segment. While T-Mobile has waged a television campaign against Virgin Mobile and others for implementing throttling, T-Mobile postpay customers are actually throttled at lower data caps than Virgin Mobile’s own customers. With Simple Mobile, and Tracfone offering no-contract plans compatible with both AT&T and T-Mobile’s data networks (and SIM-locked devices), switching to prepaid is becoming more attractive in an era of increased fees, for less postpay data and services.
This news comes the same day that AT&T has begun to distribute LTE micro-SIMs to stores, which will give the carrier the ability to power upcoming LTE-based devices, presumably including the next iPad, and next iPhone. As currently outlined by AT&T, customers that are willing to pay the upgraded handset fee will be able to keep their unlimited, albeit throttled, data plans when upgrading to future LTE devices.
They are just going to just force people to let their contract expire and then move on to Verizon. I don’t know when AT&T will learn to make their service actually worth paying for. These days people want to spend their money on service they can trust and that’s fast.
That’s the problem. Verizon is now capped and throttling those that aren’t too. Sprint I’d the only option at this point, and even Dan Hesse had said it won’t last forever…
Tmobile value plan with 2 years contract – till February 1, 2014: Loyalty department – helped by DANIEL (employee no. 1244098) Ingrid (employee no. 58046) Maira (employee no. 47271) Chris (february 1,2012)
$49.98 – 1000 whenever minutes (unlimited nights & weekends and tmobile-tmobile unlimited call)
$20 – 5gb (unlimited) (no overages) Super fast internet speed (18mbps-28mbps consistently here in Austin,Texas)
$10 – 2gb (unlimited) (no overages) Super fast internet speed (18mbps-28mbps consistently here in Austin, Texas)
$5 – 3rd line (we can add 2gb (unlimited-no overages) internet anytime for $10)
$5 – 4th line (we can add 2gb (unlimited-no overages) internet anytime for $10)
$20 – domestic & international (worldwide) – all kinds of messaging (unlimited) for all 4 lines
Total – $109.98 plus taxes & fees with 15% corporate discount and $10 loyalty discount/month till the contract expires.
So we are looking between $90-$110/month for 4 lines. That is one heck of a deal that NO ONE CAN BEAT.
* Free wifi calling for all 4 lines (will not use minutes to call anybody (domestic) as long its in wifi zone)
* Corporate discounts – effective till the contract expires
* Replace all sim card – 4 lines to 4g sim (tmobile store) – free.
* Can take off internet data features in any line, anytime? their answer is YES.
* $120 credit towards the coming bill
* No migration fee
* no upgrade fee
* Block pay per use web for lines – (free)
* Web guard – teen (free)
* International long distance blocking for all lines (free)
Theres more freebies we got from free phone (1 day sale of samsung galaxy s2 & htc amaze) to 1st month credit on our account.
NO ONE CAN BEAT TMOBILE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE AND INSANE PRICING & PACKAGES…
I was an AT&T subscriber for 8 years and will never go back to them forever…