re: Someone help me with AT&T Next

quote:

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every situation is different, and some people may end up spending more depending on how often they upgrade and how many GB of data they purchase

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tl;dr version:
If your AT&T data plan is 10GB or greater, or you expect to keep your phone longer than 2 years, you save money with the installment plan rather than upgrading.

On the Mobile Share Value Plans, if you don't get the free upgrade and have over 10GB of data you get a $25 discount per line per month. Under 10GB the discount is $15 per month.

A $649 phone has an upgrade price of $199 + $40 activation fee. So $27.09 per month on an installment plan for 24 months vs $9.96 per month prorated upgrade cost over 24 months.

On a 10GB or greater data plan you lose your $25 discount by upgrading, so you're actually paying $25 + $9.96 or $34.96 per month to upgrade rather than paying just $27.09 per month on a 0% interest installment plan. The numbers aren't favorable for the smaller data plans though, $15 + $9.96 = $24.96. So if you have a smaller data plan you actually save a few dollars per month by upgrading. However you've just increased your plan rate $15 per month, so you start losing money if you keep your phone much longer than 2 years.