When we first heard that AT&T and Verizon were going to start offering shared family data plans we were kind of excited about it. The thought of offering a single data package that every line could share was pretty cool. Verizon launched their plans recently and they were pretty simple to understand. Now AT&T has officially launched their new shared plans today and have done what they do best, confused the crap out of the whole thing.
AT&T says it is all about choices and we like choices, but confusing choices help no one but them. Let’s see if we can explain how this works out. Each package offers unlimited texting and talking. That is easy enough. The price for each package is set in stone and the per device charge goes down slightly the more data you are purchasing. So, for a Single line account with a smartphone and tablet on the 4GB plan will be, $70 for the plan + $40 for the phone + $10 for the tablet to share the data. That will make your monthly bill $120 plus tax. Run the same scenario for a family plan, $70 for the plan + $80 for two smartphones and your bill is sitting at $150 a month. If you have another family member on there that uses a basic or messaging phone then that would be another $30 a month moving your bill to $180. The perk of course is that all lines have unlimited SMS and talk plus share a set amount of data. Then you add in tablets and laptops and you can see how your bill can get quite high.
We can see how this will be a benefit for the heavy users with multiple device on an account. For users like my self, I have 3 phones with 1000 minutes and unlimited SMS and data on two lines. My T-Mobile bill never crosses $90 a month. We were hoping for a little more flexibility in these share plans though. Like being able to add a package to your current plan so that your data costs per line went down. We just don’t see that happening with the way AT&T has this set up. On the Verizon side of things, these plans are pretty similar. You will save on some and spend more on others.
What are your thoughts? DO you have pans to investigate these new plans a bit further and possible make a change to your account? I am not an AT&T or Verizon customer so I can’t give you my customer perspective, but as an outsider looking in, they seem pretty costly.
Via AT&T PressÂ
