AT&T Announces new data plans

In effort to lower data pricing AT&T has announced new lower data plan rates. Along with the lower pricing model comes choice, which for many will be a relief. In the past if you wanted a smartphone data plan you had one option. With the newly tiered structure you have a choice of 2 tiers with a option to use as much as you want, for a fee of course.

Now that we have the numbers in front us let us do a little math to see if we are actually saving money with these new data plans. Each equation will be calculated based on average users, which AT&T claims is 98% of its user base.

Average Joe with smartphone

Imagine you are an average person that currently uses their phone for email and to browses occasionally to look for movie show times, Facebook, Twitter etc. . With normal usage you would typically stay well under 200 MB of data. Even with a couple of attachments via email you would easily stay safely in this threshold. With the new data plans you you would save an estimated $15 a month, before tax and fees of course.

Now let’s take into account that you go on vacation and snap pictures left and right. You are excited and want to start posting them to your favorite publishing services. During this trip you also find yourself browsing and using Geo applications more often to find out what is going on around you in this unfamiliar territory. Before you know it you have reached that 200 MB threshold and an additional $15 is appended to the end of your bill. You are now looking at $30 worth of data fees for the month versus $15.

In this instance you pay slightly more for the month you need it but once you get back home you return to your lower tier at $15 a month. Sounds like a great deal to me.

Social Network Junky/Road Warrior/Business User

The first thing this user will scoff at is the fact that they go through 200 MB during breakfast while streaming video, music, and uploading the picture of their breakfast to their favorite sites. In reality they aren’t using near as much data as they think they are. Last month with T-Mobile and AT&T combined I used under 1GB of data. I consider myself in the above category yet look at my numbers. I stream Last.FM while I walk and upload pictures almost daily. My twitter and Facebook feeds are running 24/7 and I get well over 200+ emails daily. Still think you need unlimited data?

Lets assume you average 1.5 GB a month which is heavy usage by most standards. With the new DataPro data plan you would be paying $25 a month versus the current $30 a month. I admit the savings are modest and you lose over 3GB of usage however with this new model you pay for what you need. With the new data plans you will have to be more responsible with how you use and monitor your usage. To me this isn’t a bad thing. The trouble comes in when you do a direct comparison to what your accustomed to having available. If you are a user that uses every last MB of their current 5GB capped “unlimited” plan you would be looking at the following: $25 base price + $10 (1GB) + $10 (1GB) + $10 (1GB) = $55 a month in data charges. Suddenly the feeling of saving money is a thing of the past.

For a user that typically uses less than $2GB a month the overall savings a year will be a $60 ($5 *12 months). If you use on average more than 2GB a month you are going to significantly raise your data cost per year with these news plans.

AT&T- News Room.