AT&T Mobility joined its rivals in offering “unlimited” LTE data to all postpaid wireless subscribers. The move follows a similar announcement earlier this week from Verizon Wireless.
A single line with unlimited data will cost $100 per month on AT&T Mobility, versus $80 on Verizon Wireless’ network. For multiline accounts, AT&T Mobility charges $40 for each additional line, while Verizon Wireless charges $45 per additional line. If a family activates four lines with unlimited data, AT&T Mobility will credit the bill for the fourth line, bringing the price for four lines to $180 per month, the same amount Verizon Wireless is charging for four lines.
The new AT&T Mobility plan includes unlimited calls from the U.S. to Canada and Mexico, and unlimited texts to more than 120 countries. It also includes an option for free roaming throughout North America.
AT&T Mobility has been offering unlimited data for several months to customers who also subscribe to the carrier’s DirecTV service. But this latest offer makes the service available to all new and existing AT&T Mobility postpaid subscribers.
AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless have some “grandfathered” customers who enjoy unlimited data plans purchased more than five years ago. Unlimited plans were common as carriers initially began to roll out LTE services and software developers leveraged the robust high-speed networks to create applications that rely heavily on video. Users soon demanded more data than the networks could deliver, and unlimited data plans started to disappear.
Now carriers have upgraded their networks with software that enables them to shift capacity in response to demand, and have added equipment designed to supports carrier aggregation and higher orders of modulation. In addition, many cell sites and smartphones now have antennas with multiple ports to support multiple-input/multiple-output technology. These network improvements give carriers confidence they can again support unlimited data plans, up to a point. Both AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless have said customers on the new plans who use more than 22 gigabytes of data per month may be subject to slower network speeds for the rest of the billing cycle.
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