The Data war has taken a turn. I wouldn’t say its for the worse though. AT&T is planning on opening up Shared data plans in response to Verizon doing so. I am an AT&T customer and when I first heard this I was excited and depressed. I’ve had the same contract plan for ages now. But it seems every year or so every carrier does an overhaul on thier plans. I haven’t been excited about any of the changes til now. After reading over the new plans info I would save money. Right now I have two lines mine and my wife’s and its close to $200 a month with 2GB of data each and 700ish minutes with unlimited text. Well I use more data, way way way more data in fact I tend to go over about 1-2 GB each month which is adding $10 each to my bill. Well for what I pay now my wife and I could share a bucket of 10GB of data with unlimited talk and text. 10GB is more than likely more than I need right now but the next step down at 6GB isn’t quite enough. Enough of my own dilemma.
The plans start at $85 which is 1GB ($40) and 1 device ($40). From their the tiers go up to 4GB($70), 6GB($90), 10GB($120), 15GB($160) and 20GB($200)
Also the more the data plan the cheaper the device cost starting at $40 for 1GB and dropping to $30 for 15GB and 20GB with $5 drops between each level.
The best part is you can have up to 10 devices per plan which is great for a hotspot, tablet, and phone to be all in one bucket of data. Sure it might be more overall if you are a power user but to have one bill and everything simplified is more mainstream and something I like even though I only have 2 phones. Another great included feature is tethering and let’s be honest with the crack down going on it needed to be added in.
There is two small issues that I myself see and its the unlimited calling is for domestic only which is very small for most people but not all. The other issue I see is that they raised the overage amount from $10 per extra GB to $15 per GB. $5 isn’t a lot but for those who snag the small plan and use a lot it can become a problem.
Overall it will be very interesting to how this takes hold of users and if the users openly take it. I myself will be crunching some numbers to see which is the most bang for my buck between what I got and this new shared data.
What are your thoughts? Do you plan to get on board with AT&T or Verizon and get your own bucket of data? Give me a shout on twitter @hawk8509 I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.
