AT&T Announces New Lower-Priced Wireless Data Plans. Should we, iPad owners care about this? Check this out....
On June 7th AT&T will introduces two new data plans to replace its current $30 unlimited smartphone plan according to today's announcement. In brief,
DataPlus:
- 200MB of data for $15 per month. AT&T says this will be enough data to meet the needs of 65% of its smartphone users. If you go over the 200MB cap, AT&T will charge you $15 per 200MB of overages.
DataPro:
- 2GB of data for $25 per month. According to AT&T, only 2% of its smartphone customers manage to blow through more than 2GB of data per month. If you go over the limit, you’ll be charged $10 per GB.
Tethering:
- Smartphone users that want tethering and have a DataPro plan can add the feature for $20 per month. This means you’ll be sharing 2GB between your phone and your laptop for $45 per month.
- But remember this: A 5GB data card plan costs $60 per month.
- This means — on average you’ll be able to have 5GB of smartphone and tethering data for $75 and not have to worry about two contracts.
“Tethering for iPhones will be available when Apple releases iPhone OS 4 this summer.” .
Wi-Fi at 20,000 AT&T Hot Spots:
- The vast majority of smartphones that AT&T offers have built-in Wi-Fi, which lets the devices automatically switch from the wireless network to a Wi-Fi hotspot without prompting, making Wi-Fi even more convenient and easy to use.
- This enables customers to use Wi-Fi in the home, office and at public locations where available.
- Wi-Fi will generally provide consistently fast speeds and does not count against a customer's monthly data plan usage total.
- In addition, virtually all AT&T smartphone customers have access at no additional charge to more than 20,000 AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots in the U.S. Customers can get more information on how to use Wi-Fi and find the location of AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots at www.att.com/wifiaccess.
How are these new plans affecting iPad users? Read further and decide for yourself which is right for you.....
iPad Users:
- Starting June 7th, new iPad customers will have two options: $15 for 250MB and $25 for 2GB of data.
- Any iPad customers who wish to stick to the $30 unlimited plan are free to do so, but AT&T is hoping most people will opt to save $5 and change plans.
- If you think you can squeak by on the new plans and save $5 to $15, AT&T will move you over to the DataPlus or DataPro plan without renewing your data commitment. Think about it.
- For new iPad customers, the $25 per month 2 GB plan will replace the existing $29.99 unlimited plan.
- iPad customers will continue to pre-pay for their wireless data plan and no contract is required.
Here is the official announcement.
From the iPad user’s perspective,
AT&T’s new pricing is a big letdown compared to the previous unlimited data plan. Since iPad is a far more demanding device when it comes to data, and activities such as Netflix and hulu streaming will quickly exceed the limit of AT&T’s DataPro plan. Two gigabytes per month is just not enough data for a device such as the iPad, and I think that many users will feel let down by AT&T’s new data plans. let’s take a moment to think about this.
What do you think? Write your opinion and comments to be part of the voice.
Monitoring and Managing Usage:
Many of you are going to grandfather your unlimited plan, but some of you may plan to either save a few bucks or to enable iPhone tethering. If you’re one of the later, how much data will you need? Unless you’re planning to tether, it’s quite easy to check your past usage to guest how much data you’ll use in the future. Here is how:
- Hit up att.com and log into your online account
- Click on My Accounts and select Bill & Payments
- Click Billing Reports and select Data Trends
- Hit Submit
From there, you’ll be able to get a detailed history of your wireless data usage. If you’re an iPhone user, you can simply grab AT&T’s myWireless Mobile app from the App Store.
Good Luck deciding your data plan.... Remember, June 7th 2010.
June 7 is also the day that Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the next-generation iPhone.
