AT&T Drops Unlimited Data Plans

On June 7th, AT&T will stop offering the unlimited data plan and force you to choose between 200MB or 2GB for $15 and $25 respectively. You'll be charged for any usage over those amounts.

Macworld has a nice summary of the changes: https://www.macworld.com/article/151719/2010/06/dataplan_faq.html?lsrc=rss_main

Definitely pissed about it.

Already being discussed here

sorry to hear this. we Canadians have never had the pleasure of unlimited data plans... i was hoping we would catch up to you, but it looks like you are being lowered to us.

verizon FTW!!!!

ink said:

verizon FTW!!!!

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QFT!!!!

ink said:

verizon FTW!!!!

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Jen said:

QFT!!!!

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For now, but like I said in the other thread...they may follow suit if people are receptive to it in the end.

The world somehow effectively turned on its axis before people were able to search the internet on their cell phones.

karamazov80 said:

The world somehow effectively turned on its axis before people were able to search the internet on their cell phones.

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Yea but before that either the interwebs didn't exist or they sucked so there was no point.

kl241 said:

Already being discussed here

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Buried within a thread about the iPhone 4.0 or the OS doesn't really apply since this effects all AT&T customers regardless of phone. Although I will say this, its suspect that when the new iPhone that has been heavily hyped is due out within a couple of weeks that they pull this in an attempt to save their network fails instead of actually improving said network.

The Mike said:

Buried within a thread about the iPhone 4.0 or the OS doesn't really apply since this effects all AT&T customers regardless of phone. Although I will say this, its suspect that when the new iPhone that has been heavily hyped is due out within a couple of weeks that they pull this in an attempt to save their network fails instead of actually improving said network.

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Yea, good thing existing iPhone users who upgrade can keep the $30 unlimited plan.

so does this drop the overall plan price? cause AT&T rapes ppl up the ass on their services. I heard Sprint was gonna get the 4G, I wander if I can take my 3G-S and go somewhere else with it. These guys come out with these so fast, its ridiculous; I'm not sure if I would go for a 4G right now..........

200 MB is $15 per month. 2GB is $25 so it drops it a bit but not by much. If you go over your alotted amounts you are supposed to be charged crazy for every byte spent. Sprint has 4G, AT&T is supposedly getting 4G in 2011 with Verizon following suit. The problem is that AT&T isn't equipped to handle the network overload in major cities. Instead of actually trying to spend funds to upgrade in major cities the answer is to limit use.

well my Dad works for Verizon, so it would be cool if I could get some sort of discount if I went with them.............not likely though

I find this interesting since overseas Tethering is an option that comes free with the data plan...

Okay, so if I keep my unlimited plan, can I add tethering?

Unfortunately, no. If you want tethering, you’ll have to switch to the new $25 DataPro plan. Neither the current plans nor the $15 DataPlus plan are eligible for the tethering option.

How does tethering impact my data plan?

The DataPro plan’s 2GB data limit is for all data transferred, regardless of whether it’s being used by your phone or a tethered device such as your laptop.

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So if you want to tether you have to go limited and then pay an extra $20 month for the option of tethering and then still be limited to the 2GB DataPro Plan.

The Mike said:

So if you want to tether you have to go limited and then pay an extra $20 month for the option of tethering and then still be limited to the 2GB DataPro Plan.

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That's right, you have to pay an extra $20 for the privilege of using the 2GB you already paid for.

Charging extra for each added device made sense with the unlimited plans, but with caps, it's just

You paid for X amount of bandwidth, who cares what you do with it? F AT&T.

WTF is tethering?

azurepred said:

WTF is tethering?

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Hooking another device up to your cell phone via USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, whatever, in order to use the cellular data connection.

Kabukiman said:

Hooking another device up to your cell phone via USB, Bluetooth, WiFi, whatever, in order to use the cellular data connection.

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Bingo. You can plug in your phone to your laptop and enable tethering and it uses the network for internet signal. I have a cousins and uncles overseas who swear by it. You can achieve it via jailbreak but everywhere except the US its included as part of the data plan. In Spain for example they make a clone of your SIM to put into the iPad 3G so you use that signal and that plan for both. That makes sense, what they are doing here.....well F AT&T.

I would be interested to see the number of cell phone users here vs other countries and how much data bandwidth USA uses vs other countries.