AT&T Unlimited Plan

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I do believe you will lose your mobile share discount if you buy a new phone and you don't sign an AT&T next contract.

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I don't have a "mobile share" plan. I have 2 phones, both with independent unlimited data. My only share is minutes (who cares).

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My contract is up and I am able to upgrade. Am I understanding correctly that I can renew my current plan for 2 more years and pay the subsidized $199-$299 price for 2 new phones?

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Yes you can, but be prepared for the salesperson to walk you through every damn scenario to try to get you on the next plan.

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CidCock

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I know this has been discussed (by me) in other threads, but I am looking for anyone who has upgraded to the new iPhone.

I have 2 unlimited phones, pay about $160 per month for unlimited. At this point, I'm not interested in losing unlimited (especially since they now are throttling at 22 GB or so), as I use it a good bit (watch netflix during lunch break at work, etc).

My contract is up and I am able to upgrade. Am I understanding correctly that I can renew my current plan for 2 more years and pay the subsidized $199-$299 price for 2 new phones?

All the articles I am reading are saying, whatever you do, don't sign another contract. I don't understand why I would pay full price for a phone out of contract if I can get them at a subsidized rate. It is my understanding that the old plan (my current plan) just locked me in for two years, it's not going to get cheaper now that the 2 years is up. So really, I am dumb not to get the newest phone as quickly as possible and get as much value from my old phones, correct?

TIA for the input.



I know people are ATT haters, but I can't say anything about it being worse than VZW. I have both, my VZW work iPhone is fine and has a little better coverage in rural areas, but my ATT phone is much faster 90% of the time.

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I dropped my iPhone 6 into the Gulf of Mexico two months ago on vacation. Well...maybe not dropped. More like drunkenly waded into the water after taking a picture of me and my wife and absent-mindedly sticking it back into the pocket of my Columbia's, but I digress.

Anyway, headed to the AT&T Corporate Store at Mall of Louisiana to discuss things. I have three lines on my plan and my wife and I both had 64GB iPhone 6's that we had gotten about a year ago. I also had my Mom on my plan who was eligible for an upgrade, and an old line I used for a WiFi Hotspot that I kept in case an emergency upgrade-like this situation-ever occurred.

I had Unlimited Data on all three lines, with nothing on the old hotspot line. When I tried to upgrade my Mom's line and switch the handset to my line, they told me they wouldn't allow me to do that anymore. The upgraded handset had to correspond to the line it was eligible for.

Then they told me that if I wanted to keep my Unlimited Data, I would be forced to pay full price (unsubsidized) for my phone. Obviously I wasn't about to throw down $800 but he did go on to explain AT&T Next to me. Within the context of the immediate future of AT&T and their pricing plans, along with a review of my data consumption and a fantastic deal on an iPad Mini 2, I went for it.

AT&T is going to eventually push everyone out of Unlimited Data. They'll pull a d!ck move and either drop you plan outright or force you into something else. They know like everyone else that cell minutes are costless and texts are costless. The money is all in data and the Unlimited Plans were never designed to provide this much data. They were invented before things like Streaming HD movies and games were around or even thought of.

Unlimited Plans will come back, but they will be higher priced to reflect the changing way that people use wireless handsets, smartphone and tablets.

This is understandable. I also looked at my data consumption, and I've never gone over 15GB in the history of my plan which is about 10 years (switched from T-Mobile).

Lastly, they offered two carrots to me: Next with the option to pay only the sales tax on the replacement 64GB iPhone 6, the Next plan's more frequent upgrade options, and then they agreed to sell me an iPad Mini 2 for $199 and let me piggyback the data, along with a free iPhone case (hey, I drive a hard bargain. Sue me).

We haven't had any surprises so far on the bill, but I am going to take a long look at Apple's leasing options. Apple Care is extremely valuable to me and if the cost is negligible, it makes a lot of sense.

Just my $0.02...

Move to Sprint- they will match the unlimited plan and cut the bill in half and give you a phone option plan

or

Go to TMObile- they are highly competitive right now and cut deals on the spot

I have T Mobile and it's easily been my favorite cellphone decision. I have 2 lines for $100 with unlimited data and 5 gb of hotspot for both. After taxes and $21 for a Nexted S5 my bill totals $131 a month. Any additional line would only be $30. There also was free unlimited data offered for a tablet but my tablets are wifi only.

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I don't have a "mobile share" plan. I have 2 phones, both with independent unlimited data. My only share is minutes (who cares).

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Yeah, a lot of people on the tech board seem to have difficulty grasping the concept of people sticking with their grandfathered unlimited plan, and the fact that we are not penalized for using the on-contract subsidy. Sounds like our plans are similar. I pay about $150 a month after fees. Two phones with grandfathered plans. For the past 8 years or so, we've both upgraded our phones every 2 years without changing a single thing in our plan.

I can, at the very least, confirm with you that I had no issue doing it yet again in November 2014. If AT&T is phasing out our plans, that's news to me.

Let me give you a valuable piece of advice: Don't do it at an AT&T store, at least not a physical location. Do it anywhere else, an authorized dealer or AT&T's web site. My go-to was Radio Shack (RIP), because they have literally no incentive to con you into a newer plan and therefore don't try. I think Best Buy is slightly more aggressive about it, based on the fact that they almost conned my parents into it (my parents had sense enough to call and ask me first).

Doing the upgrade online and keeping my unlimited plan was surprisingly very easy. Last November, I decided to get a Nexus 6, and I was able to do every bit of it through AT&T online. Selecting the phone, selecting my plan (yes, the option to keep my current plan was there in plain view), digitally signing the contract, and paying with a CC. Hopefully it hasn't changed in the past 10 months.

They don't. I'm up to 40 gbs of data used so far this month and still able to stream videos and pull over 15mbps download times. I've tested it by letting Netflix play continuously overnight and it moves at 40gbs like it did at 1.

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I have att unlimited as well. Trying to decide what to do when I finally upgrade my iPhone 5. I always buy AppleCare anyways with my phones and am intrigued by the apple plan they just announced.


Anyone know if you can get your phone at the Apple Store with the apple plan and still keep your unlimited? I've been eligible to upgrade for a few months now (2year contract was up this past July).

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Hey Nurse, where have you been???

It's my understanding (could be 100% wrong), that if you buy a phone directly from apple or anyone other than ATT you would keep your old plan at the same price, it just wouldn't be contracted (who cares?). But if you are in the same position as me, why pay full price when you can get the subsidy and pay the same thing? Maybe do that and get insurance through ATT?

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I agree. If you have no plans to get rid of AT&T, might as well get your nearly free phone when it's available. I do the same thing when I upgrade -- selling the old one nearly offsets the cost of the new one.

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No doubt, it's always better to get the newest model. Holds value better for the next phone in 2 years.