AT&T unlimited cell data is back

denverpilot

denverpilot

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I don't need this, but I follow "industry stuff" and passing it along to pilot buddies in case someone wants it...

AT&T announced yesterday if you have U-Verse or DirecTV TV service and bundle your cell bill, they're selling truly unlimited cell phone data plans again for the first time since they all died long ago other than grandfathered plans.

Downsides:
- No tethering. Geeks know how to get around this but technically none.
- No swapping SIMs between phone and tablet devices. (TMo doesn't care and Verizon has to allow it after their one band auction pickup that says they can't lock SIMs anymore...)
- Have to maintain a TV contract or it goes bye bye.
No cap, but you will be "deprioritized" during cell site congestion on your specific cell site if you exceed 23GB of data in a month.
They're saying "limited time offer".

Upsides:
- For four phones it comes out the same price as TMobile's identical plan (without TV and with tethering) -- for a big family that could be significant. (Also requires the fourth phone is free, also a limited time offer.)
- Unlimited. What's not to like?
- Beats the holy hell out of Verizon's price for plans that have caps.
- Better network than TMo or Sprint almost everywhere. YMMV.

Probably other stuff I forgot.

Anyway... If you always wanted a truly unlimited data plan on your smartphone or tablet (no one is quite sure yet if you can do ONLY a tablet, unless that's been found in the fine print since last night when I was researching it all) here's your first legitimate chance since TMo's deal of two lines unlimited for $100 on smartphones that they already killed about a year ago.

I'm half tempted to put one line on the stupid thing but I'd really prefer to just have a sim for a tablet only on that network. Will have to do some more research on that.

Obviously AT&T wants to leverage the whole "bundling" thing to give folks a reason not to "cord" cut on DirecTV, so they've dangled the carrot. If you're already on DirecTv and planning to stay a long time, and live where AT&T has comparable cell coverage to VZ, grabbing unlimited cell data along with it, doesn't suck.

For some it's not a good deal at all, understandably. It's not for me unless I can stick one tablet on it and call it a day. The tethering thing is the main kicker for me. While I don't do it often, I would hate to go back to a carrier that didn't just allow it all the time and/or have to fight with jail breaking or other stupidity to get it back.

There ya go. Hope it helps someone out.
 
Doesn't sound like that great of a deal.

Frankly ATT is offering less and less nowadays, now with all the VZW phones having a sim slot for international prepaids when abroad, T mobile offering more for less and without the horrible customer support you get with ATT, I really wonder how much longer ATT wireless will be around.
 
James331 said:
Doesn't sound like that great of a deal.



Frankly ATT is offering less and less nowadays, now with all the VZW phones having a sim slot for international prepaids when abroad, T mobile offering more for less and without the horrible customer support you get with ATT, I really wonder how much longer ATT wireless will be around.
Click to expand...


With their spectrum allocation, they won't be the first to die. Sprint and TMo are currently dukeing it out in that regard with massive build-out/catchup debt.

TMo is blowing through cash adding 700 MHz and then may have blown their wad. Lajere has been pilfering customers away from the big kids with his pricing and "uncarrier" stuff, but his latest round of plans looks more like the big carrier plans and pricing, and the recent fluff up over the video proxy stuff where they turned on video compression and limited mobile video to 480p (while saying it doesn't count against your data cap) and press fluff with EFF over it, highlighted that unlimited and high limit users are crushing his backhaul and spectrum. Of course you can turn it off... They're just shooting down the lowest common denominator users who don't pay any attention and don't go hunt down the setting buried in their account page on the website.

Nobody knows what the hell Sprint is doing, but it isn't growing... and one of their major investors claimed buying in was "the worst mistake of my life". They keep matching or attempting to match TMo pricing, but they're in a race to the bottom.

Old "T" has a long way to go before they're dead. VZ still has them on network size and bandwidth but not nearly the gap size between T and TMo and Sprint.

All are also pushing the heck out of their MVNOs and Cricket is all moved over to AT&T now, and the various MVNO brands at WalMart in both post-paid and pre-paid are doing very well, and you have to eyeball the boxes carefully to even see who's network those put you on...

Be interesting to see where it all leads. There's still the weird purchase of massive spectrum by Dish Network in the last auction that still has industry folks scratching heads a bit, too.

The other interesting one last year was Google announcing "Project Fi" as a dual-carrier MVNO with WiFi calling augmenting that, but it looks to have mostly fizzled due to pricing that really wasn't stellar. Don't think they were really that serious about becoming a player. They'd have to do a bigger loss-leader for a while to suck subscribers to themselves, especially considering the limited number of models of phones they'll allow.

The addition of bands for a few players (like TMo's 700 MHz buildout) and LTE carrier aggregation has sure made data speeds fast in some areas... If you're in the right place at the right time on the right carrier.

Wish Project Fi had partnered with one of the big two. Or even three. A multi-carrier MVNO just for raw coverage would be great. Well that and a much much much better band/carrier switching speed on iOS devices. Android has iOS significantly beat in that regard.

Can't even do TMo Band 12 (700 MHz) on anything older than an iPhone 6s. Not even the 6/6+ have it. Numerous Android phones had it before iPhone.

Always interesting stuff going on in the old biz. I like reading telecom stuff as an outsider these days. Seeing the sausage made on the inside and wireline sides was enough telecom for me for a lifetime.

Now "day is jest venders ta me". Heh. ;)
 
James331 said:
Doesn't sound like that great of a deal.

Frankly ATT is offering less and less nowadays, now with all the VZW phones having a sim slot for international prepaids when abroad, T mobile offering more for less and without the horrible customer support you get with ATT, I really wonder how much longer ATT wireless will be around.
Click to expand...

ATT will be around for awhile because the quality of their service and network is substantially better than TMO and Sprint, and even VZW in some areas. TMO appears to have done an impressive job with upgrading and expanding their network, but they're still spectrum-challenged. If I have to be in a major metro area and stand outside in the winter cold to receive a cellular signal, that probably isn't going to work for me. To paraphrase a comment that I read regarding TMO, it doesn't matter that the customer service is great if your phone has no service. My ATT service has been so reliable and comprehensive in the past few years that I've had no reason to call customer service.

With that being said, if I was a frequent international traveler, TMO's overall value might swing the pendulum more clearly in their direction. It's clear that TMO has been a disruptive force in the market, and I like their no-nonsense approach (even though there is some nonsense in there, too).

BTW, I've found the "Free WiFi" at most places to be worth exactly what they charge for it. Nice if it's fast and reliable, but in my experience that is usually not the case.


JKG
 
AT&T unlimited cell data is back

James331 said:
This is what I use, great bang for the buck.



Between every other place having wifi and what I do on the net in my phone, this works great.









https://www.h2owirelessnow.com/mainControl.php?page=planMonth
Click to expand...


H2O is an AT&T MVNO.

If you can keep your use below 4GB/mo, their largest plan, they're not bad. $60 and you get full data rate on AT&T's network ... until the cap, and then you get dropped to 128 Kbps and good luck even pulling up a web page after that until the month clicks over. Heh.

They aren't bad really though if you pay attention to what you're doing bandwidth wise.

I think they have some limitation on BYOD (bring your own device) but I don't remember what they are right now. Probably setup fees, which is the usual thing on that nowadays.)

They're also pre-pay vs post-pay which really isn't meaning much anymore.

[Edit: You do have to watch the senseless add on fees on MVNOs though, and I forget what H2O's are. Some charge for paper billing, some charge for certain types of phones, there's a ton of MVNOs so you can shop 'til you drop and find a perfect fit with enough time and luck. Some pay "buckets" games where you buy everything a la carte... Etc.]
 
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JGoodish said:
To paraphrase a comment that I read regarding TMO, it doesn't matter that the customer service is great if your phone has no service.
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The thoughts I had when I jumped on the TMo two phone unlimited deal were:

- I'm not "technically" working a job that mandates 24/7 on-call, so if I missed a call, life would go on.
- I knew we lived in the boonies so it was likely we'd have zero or near zero coverage once we left the city.
- Knew we could do wifi calling on iOS devices with the right devices on TMo.

What really happened for me:

- Rural house is actually completely outside of TMo network coverage but they have a cross agreement with Cell One of NE Colorado / Viaero who has a solid 3G only network. iOS device is often horribly confused in the overlap area as we go into and out of the city but we know where the "dead" spots are. They're not really dead there, if you stop there and wait for the hideous carrier switching algorithm in iOS devices to figure out what to do, you'll have solid coverage right in that same spot on one network or the other. Also if you can do it safely, forcing the stupid phone out of auto mode and then choosing the correct carrier for that location after knowing what works there also works, but again iOS makes that process hideously slow. Android devices do it WAY better and WAY faster.

- In the city... work location is iffy. -110 dBm RSSI numbers. Not great. A block away is solid of course. TMo has a gaping hole in coverage in the old Stapleton area. But nearly everywhere else it's solid and fast.

- Travel... Didn't expect much. If it went dead and stayed dead, who cares? "Maybe can make calls" was my expectation. It was way better than that. Trip to OSH driving last year, Nebraska is... Surprise surprise... Cell One of NE and same deal as at home. Solid 3G all the way across the state on I-80 and no "domestic roaming" data cap. Just worked. Nice. Iowa was a complete black hole. Talking to folks later it appears both iOS devices picked the wrong carrier and held it all the way across the state. Wisconsin was good TMo coverage or various roaming partners and it mostly "just worked", even when we went wandering off the beaten path and ended up on "Bug Tussel" as the roaming partner.

Other cities: Phoenix was decent but slow. Lincoln and and Omaha in NE are "native" TMo and it's far far worse than just being on CellOne/Viaero. Worst coverage ever on TMo is in those two cities. Better to force the phone off of TMo back to them where you can. LOL.

GA Airports: Very hit or miss in CO, eastern KS, and NE. Some airports are rock solid, others are totally dead. It ain't VZ.

So all in all for my use, it's been fine. But I wouldn't keep them if I had to answer on-call calls or had to travel.

VZ is the only way to go for a domestic road warrior and it's a toss up with them and AT&T internationally it appears now that VZ has SIM capable devices.

Total bill for the two of us on VZ was pushing $230/mo at one point. Total on TMo is $120 with two iOS phones and two iOS tablets.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

denverpilot said:
H2O is an AT&T MVNO.

If you can keep your use below 4GB/mo, their largest plan, they're not bad. $60 and you get full data rate on AT&T's network ... until the cap, and then you get dropped to 128 Kbps and good luck even pulling up a web page after that until the month clicks over. Heh.

They aren't bad really though if you pay attention to what you're doing bandwidth wise.

I think they have some limitation on BYOD (bring your own device) but I don't remember what they are right now. Probably setup fees, which is the usual thing on that nowadays.)

They're also pre-pay vs post-pay which really isn't meaning much anymore.

[Edit: You do have to watch the senseless add on fees on MVNOs though, and I forget what H2O's are. Some charge for paper billing, some charge for certain types of phones, there's a ton of MVNOs so you can shop 'til you drop and find a perfect fit with enough time and luck. Some pay "buckets" games where you buy everything a la carte... Etc.]
Click to expand...


Exactly, I'm on the larger plan, plus I do auto pay which gives me a 10% discount! I don't see any other fees or BS, what's on their website is the out e door price.

As for devices, ATT doesn't discount devices anymore, they just finance the full price at 0% interest and you pay the sales tax up front, frankly you're paying full pop anyway, might as well buy a unlocked one straight from apple or whoever.

ATT works for me, but I would never pay the super premium just to have ATT in the top right corner of my screen, when I can use their network for a major discount, less BS and just have H2O in the corner of my screen.
 
I switched to MetroPCS from AT&T couple months back. Get 3 gigs at 4G for $35 then drops to slow speed for unlimited. The unlimited speed isn't bad, you can load web pages just fine ( I'm on it now) but it's usually not worth the wait to stream video. If there's something I really want to watch on YT I can watch it if I'm willing to wait. Also, got a nice HTC phone for cheap.
 
Might look into it. I could stream music during my commute instead of listening to my library.
 
steingar said:
Might look into it. I could stream music during my commute instead of listening to my library.
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If you live in TMo coverage their MusicFreedom and slightly controversial BingeOn services are for exactly that, free streaming of all popular audio and video sites, even on their regular capped plans.
 
I have the AT&T 15GB plan only because when I go to San Francisco I have no other internet service. I would choose a smaller plan if I didn't need it for that purpose.

The last iPhone I bought was through the Apple installment plan. I like the fact that I'm now free to change carriers. I'm wondering what people use for international service. I don't make or receive many personal phone calls but I would like to be able to receive texts and email.
 
Mari,
I have been using AT&T for many years and found that it provides service on most of the islands of the Caribbean (through the local cell service) and all through Mexico and Latin America. Just got back from Cuba and had no service. Some of the folks had to have cell service and spent a lot to get connected.
Walt
 
Walt said:
Mari,
I have been using AT&T for many years and found that it provides service on most of the islands of the Caribbean (through the local cell service) and all through Mexico and Latin America. Just got back from Cuba and had no service. Some of the folks had to have cell service and spent a lot to get connected.
Walt
Click to expand...
Thanks Walt. Maybe I should have been more specific but I am talking about Southern Africa, particularly South Africa. I know there are other places I am going that I would have no service and I am OK with that. I don't need to communicate with people back in the states, but I am more interested in communicating with people in my party, say if we got separated or needed to coordinate a time to meet.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

denverpilot said:
H2O is an AT&T MVNO.

If you can keep your use below 4GB/mo, their largest plan, they're not bad. $60 and you get full data rate on AT&T's network ... until the cap, and then you get dropped to 128 Kbps and good luck even pulling up a web page after that until the month clicks over. Heh.

They aren't bad really though if you pay attention to what you're doing bandwidth wise.

I think they have some limitation on BYOD (bring your own device) but I don't remember what they are right now. Probably setup fees, which is the usual thing on that nowadays.)

They're also pre-pay vs post-pay which really isn't meaning much anymore.

[Edit: You do have to watch the senseless add on fees on MVNOs though, and I forget what H2O's are. Some charge for paper billing, some charge for certain types of phones, there's a ton of MVNOs so you can shop 'til you drop and find a perfect fit with enough time and luck. Some pay "buckets" games where you buy everything a la carte... Etc.]
Click to expand...

Sooo... What's the advantage of H2O over AT&T's own prepaid brand (4GB with one-month rollover, also $60.00/month)?

As for ATT, I switched to ATT from VZW close to a year ago because ATT will put BB10 devices on prepaid. The hardest part was getting them to believe they had service here. They have a tower about two or three miles away from me, but apparently they never updated their sales database to reflect it, so they wouldn't sell me a SIM online.

I couldn't even do it over the phone. The system wouldn't let the rep send me the card, even when someone from engineering verified that the tower was there. I guess it's kind of nice that they won't sell service where they don't think they have any, but it's kind of a pain when they don't update their database to reflect new towers.

In any case, I wound up driving to an AT&T store about an hour away, activating it using their address, and then updating it to my own. It let me do that with no complaints.

I get in the neighborhood of 30 - 40 Mbps over LTE at my home, which I think is outstanding for the middle of nowhere. Better still, AT&T doesn't care if I tether or use the BB's hotspot. Because I don't use very much data over the phone, I start out each month with ~ 7.5 GB (including the rollover from the previous month) that I could use as backup Internet for my computers if the cable were to go down.

Rich
 
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Never been gone for me, I've been holding on to my $30/mo iPhone data plan since my first iPhone. Been upgraded 4 times since.
 
flyingron said:
Never been gone for me, I've been holding on to my $30/mo iPhone data plan since my first iPhone. Been upgraded 4 times since.
Click to expand...


Same here. I think I have had unlimited with Verizon for $30/mo, less 10% discount, since my first Droid phone, then on to 3 iphones.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

RJM62 said:
Sooo... What's the advantage of H2O over AT&T's own prepaid brand (4GB with one-month rollover, also $60.00/month)?

As for ATT, I switched to ATT from VZW close to a year ago because ATT will put BB10 devices on prepaid. The hardest part was getting them to believe they had service here. They have a tower about two or three miles away from me, but apparently they never updated their sales database to reflect it, so they wouldn't sell me a SIM online.

I couldn't even do it over the phone. The system wouldn't let the rep send me the card, even when someone from engineering verified that the tower was there. I guess it's kind of nice that they won't sell service where they don't think they have any, but it's kind of a pain when they don't update their database to reflect new towers.

In any case, I wound up driving to an AT&T store about an hour away, activating it using their address, and then updating it to my own. It let me do that with no complaints.

I get in the neighborhood of 30 - 40 Mbps over LTE at my home, which I think is outstanding for the middle of nowhere. Better still, AT&T doesn't care if I tether or use the BB's hotspot. Because I don't use very much data over the phone, I start out each month with ~ 7.5 GB (including the rollover from the previous month) that I could use as backup Internet for my computers if the cable were to go down.

Rich
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It's less money for more service, plus you get quite a bit of international calling tossed in.

Their customer service blows, but ATT sucks too, only difference is you'll never get to talk to a operator with H2O vs talking to a idiot with ATT. Frankly you're always better off just googling your problem anyways.
 
I've had Verzon unlimited data for years, because I haven't signed a contract for about 10 years now.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

James331 said:
It's less money for more service, plus you get quite a bit of international calling tossed in.

Their customer service blows, but ATT sucks too, only difference is you'll never get to talk to a operator with H2O vs talking to a idiot with ATT. Frankly you're always better off just googling your problem anyways.
Click to expand...

Actually, I was pretty happy the few times I had to call ATT.

The first time was when I tried to order the SIM, which didn't work out, but the engineer did spend quite a bit of time making sure I'd have service before I made the trip to the store. The second time was porting the number, which took about a minute, during which the rep stayed on the line so she could call me and verify that the port was complete.

Other than those two times, I really haven't had any occasion to call them. Maybe they give you two smart people as a signup bonus before the idiots take over.

Rich
 
Walt said:
Mari,
I have been using AT&T for many years and found that it provides service on most of the islands of the Caribbean (through the local cell service) and all through Mexico and Latin America. Just got back from Cuba and had no service. Some of the folks had to have cell service and spent a lot to get connected.
Walt
Click to expand...

Last time I went to Mexico with ATT a few years ago, they charged me for 3 incoming, 1-minute calls. 1.99 each. Nobody picked up the phone. It rang=1 minute.
 
genna said:
Last time I went to Mexico with ATT a few years ago, they charged me for 3 incoming, 1-minute calls. 1.99 each. Nobody picked up the phone. It rang=1 minute.
Click to expand...
I go to Canada frequently and Mexico infrequently, but I have never been charged by AT&T for a call I didn't answer.
 
Everskyward said:
I go to Canada frequently and Mexico infrequently, but I have never been charged by AT&T for a call I didn't answer.
Click to expand...

Amusingly I went to Australia in 2004 I think with my ATT WINCE phone. There wasn't hardly anywhere in the country I didn't have GSM service with data. Amusingly while I paid for a few telephone calls I made/received roaming there, they charged me NOTHING for any data usage. I was quite surprised but I think GSM DATA Roaming was so new the probably didn't know what to do with it.
 
Everskyward said:
I go to Canada frequently and Mexico infrequently, but I have never been charged by AT&T for a call I didn't answer.
Click to expand...

This was in 2010 I think. I was very surprised, but when I called them to ask, they suggested I should keep phone off or in airplane mode not to get unwanted charges. Back then I had "unlimited" data plan with some minutes(as in not free text/calls)

I switched to TMo in 2012. Mostly for $$ reasons when I could no longer add people to my unlimited plan.
 
flyingron said:
Never been gone for me, I've been holding on to my $30/mo iPhone data plan since my first iPhone. Been upgraded 4 times since.
Click to expand...



bnt83 said:
I've had Verzon unlimited data for years, because I haven't signed a contract for about 10 years now.
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Both carriers are reportedly raising prices on those grandfathered plans this year, whether on or off contract. Not by much. It's still a better deal than not folks can get, but they'll push that price slowly up.

They were told by FCC they can't throttle it after a lawsuit (especially VZ since they took the spectrum auction that mandated open use) but FCC didn't tell them they can't increase the price.
 
AT&T unlimited cell data is back

I had to poke around out of curiosity...

Sprint lost $585M in Q3 in operating revenue. Half a BILLION dollar loss. $0.15/share at the time.

Man they're in worse shape than I thought. Amazing. I hadn't looked in a while.

I didn't look at Q4. Too painful. Wow. Ha.
 
Sprint is pulling out of NASCAR. That should tell you something.
 
denverpilot said:
I don't need this, but I follow "industry stuff" and passing it along to pilot buddies in case someone wants it...

AT&T announced yesterday if you have U-Verse or DirecTV TV service and bundle your cell bill, they're selling truly unlimited cell phone data plans again for the first time since they all died long ago other than grandfathered plans.

Downsides:
Click to expand...

Let me help you with the downsides:

1) AT&T
2) AT&T
3) ****ty service (sorry, it's worse than that, but needed to clean it up for PoA)
4) AT&T
5) Overpriced
6) Slowww.... u-verse. I've been seeing around 3mbps
7-10) AT&T


Anyway, great to have unlimited crappy service. Kind of like a buffet, the food is terrible, but you can have all you want!
 
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SkyHog said:
Sprint is pulling out of NASCAR. That should tell you something.
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I don't know what it's telling me. They only inherited the NASCAR stuff when they bought NEXTEL. Two disaster wireless companies that didn't get much better after merger.
 
rolivi said:
Anyway, great to have unlimited crappy service. Kind of like a buffet, the food is terrible, but you can have all you want!
Click to expand...

I've traveled throughout the country, and have found AT&T LTE wireless service to be generally excellent. In the metro area in which I live, it's a heck of a lot faster than Verizon LTE, though I think that Verizon is starting to rectify some of the capacity issues.

As for U-Verse, I can't comment because it isn't available in my area. Verizon FiOS is available, but they don't have a franchise agreement for television in my municipality so they can only offer Internet and phone. I switched from Comcast to FiOS for Internet a few months ago, and so far, so good. It did take about three months and a threat to start writing letters for Verizon to get the billing correct.


JKG
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

James331 said:
It's less money for more service, plus you get quite a bit of international calling tossed in.

Their customer service blows, but ATT sucks too, only difference is you'll never get to talk to a operator with H2O vs talking to a idiot with ATT. Frankly you're always better off just googling your problem anyways.
Click to expand...

Meh. I'm pretty happy with AT&T prepaid.

They just bumped up my $60.00/month prepaid plan to 5GB / month data, which apparently doesn't include data used for MMS because picture messages are included in the "unlimited text" part of the deal. It also includes unlimited voice calls to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and unlimited text pretty much anywhere in the world.

In addition, AT&T enables the hotspot feature on prepaid. Because I don't use much data to speak of (the handset's usually on WiFi), that essentially gives me ~10GB/month of 30 - 50mbps connectivity to use as fallback Internet if my cable goes down.

Sometimes AT&T "invites" me to convert my prepaid account to a postpaid account, typically at a cost of $10.00 less per month for what looks like an "equivalent" plan. But the plans aren't really equivalent because the postpaid plans don't include the rollover data. Also, the postpaid plans have taxes tacked on. Prepaid is a flat $60.00 / month if I pay at the desk or kiosk at an AT&T store. (Oddly enough, however, they do tack on sales tax if I pay online. Go figger.)

Besides, I hate contracts, and I hate vendors storing my PII.

Rich
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

RJM62 said:
Meh. I'm pretty happy with AT&T prepaid.

They just bumped up my $60.00/month prepaid plan to 5GB / month data, which apparently doesn't include data used for MMS because picture messages are included in the "unlimited text" part of the deal. It also includes unlimited voice calls to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and unlimited text pretty much anywhere in the world.

In addition, AT&T enables the hotspot feature on prepaid. Because I don't use much data to speak of (the handset's usually on WiFi), that essentially gives me ~10GB/month of 30 - 50mbps connectivity to use as fallback Internet if my cable goes down.

Sometimes AT&T "invites" me to convert my prepaid account to a postpaid account, typically at a cost of $10.00 less per month for what looks like an "equivalent" plan. But the plans aren't really equivalent because the postpaid plans don't include the rollover data. Also, the postpaid plans have taxes tacked on. Prepaid is a flat $60.00 / month if I pay at the desk or kiosk at an AT&T store. (Oddly enough, however, they do tack on sales tax if I pay online. Go figger.)

Besides, I hate contracts, and I hate vendors storing my PII.

Rich
Click to expand...


That's really good info there. Thanks. If we ever decide we must go to AT&T for whatever reason, sounds like prepay is a lot closer to our TMobile deal than postpay by a long shot. The tethering is important to me.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

denverpilot said:
That's really good info there. Thanks. If we ever decide we must go to AT&T for whatever reason, sounds like prepay is a lot closer to our TMobile deal than postpay by a long shot. The tethering is important to me.
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My pleasure.

I just tested the hot spot again because I haven't used it in a while, and it performed at about 30 down / 10 up. That's in my office in the rear of the house, with three bars, and using a BlackBerry Q10 as the hot spot. I usually pick up a bar and some speed in the front of the house.

Rich
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

RJM62 said:
Meh. I'm pretty happy with AT&T prepaid.

They just bumped up my $60.00/month prepaid plan to 5GB / month data, which apparently doesn't include data used for MMS because picture messages are included in the "unlimited text" part of the deal. It also includes unlimited voice calls to the U.S., Canada, and Mexico and unlimited text pretty much anywhere in the world.

In addition, AT&T enables the hotspot feature on prepaid. Because I don't use much data to speak of (the handset's usually on WiFi), that essentially gives me ~10GB/month of 30 - 50mbps connectivity to use as fallback Internet if my cable goes down.

Sometimes AT&T "invites" me to convert my prepaid account to a postpaid account, typically at a cost of $10.00 less per month for what looks like an "equivalent" plan. But the plans aren't really equivalent because the postpaid plans don't include the rollover data. Also, the postpaid plans have taxes tacked on. Prepaid is a flat $60.00 / month if I pay at the desk or kiosk at an AT&T store. (Oddly enough, however, they do tack on sales tax if I pay online. Go figger.)

Besides, I hate contracts, and I hate vendors storing my PII.

Rich
Click to expand...

MMS, like SMS do not use Internet . Hence they are not going to use your data. However, iMessage does use internet data.
 
Re: AT&T unlimited cell data is back

genna said:
MMS, like SMS do not use Internet . Hence they are not going to use your data. However, iMessage does use internet data.
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That had been my understanding once upon a time. But when I had T-Mo prepaid some years ago, I couldn't send or receive MMS messages if I was on an AT&T tower; and someone I knew in that business told me it was because MMS uses data, and the T-Mo prepaid roaming agreement with AT&T didn't include data.

I didn't really give it much thought after that because I rarely receive an MMS that's in the least bit important. Mainly they're endless selfies from my younger friends and relatives who seem to live in fear that others will forget what they look like without constant reminders.

Thanks for the information.

Rich
 
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