AT&T Mobility is reaching to its past to counter a new modern threat by announcing it is bringing back its “Rollover” feature for data services.
The carrier said that beginning Jan. 25, all new and current customers signed up for its Mobile Share Value plans will automatically be enrolled in its Rollover Data feature that will allow customers to maintain their unused data allotment for up to one month. All lines sharing the plan’s data allotment will have access to any data that is rolled over, with the new month tapping into the plan’s initial data allotment before using rolled over data.
The rollover initiative has a history at the carrier as its former Cingular Wireless incarnation was one of the first to offer a rollover feature for its voice calling plans back in 2002. More recently, Verizon Wireless offered a rollover of data access for its prepaid AllSet Plans.
Competitive reaction
The offering would seem to be a reaction to T-Mobile US’ recently launched Data Stash program, which allows customers who pay extra each month for a larger bucket of high-speed data access to rollover any unused portion. The T-Mobile US program does allow customers to have access to their rolled over data for as long as they keep an active account with the carrier, with the carrier further incentivizing the offer by providing customers with a bonus 10 gigabytes of data.
While T-Mobile US does not charge customers to rollover their data, it does provide an incentive for customers to select one of the carrier’s extra-cost data buckets. T-Mobile US currently provides 1 gigabyte of high-speed data for smartphones and 1.2 GB of data on mobile Internet devices. Customers can purchase a 3 GB bucket of data for their smartphones for $10 per month; 5 GB for $20 per month; or “unlimited” data for $30 per month. The move would seem to be a good incentive for consumers to purchase a larger data bucket, and in turn help prop up T-Mobile US’ sagging average revenue-per-user metric. The carrier reported that during the third quarter of last year traditional postpaid ARPU dropped $2.78 year-over-year to $49.84, which the carrier linked to continued adoption of its Simple Choice rate plans that accounted for 84% of accounts at the end of the quarter.
T-Mobile US reported today that it posted a 1.8-to-1 positive porting ratio with AT&T Mobility during the final three months of last year on its way to adding 2.1 million net new connections. AT&T is scheduled to announce fourth-quarter results on Jan. 27.
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