New ATT Family plan

[widgeon13]

I now have ATT, two iPhones a(Family Plan) nd unlimited data along with 450 shared minutes per month paying $134/ month.

Would I benefit at all by going with the two lines at $130/month and if I do that can I also tether an iPad?

Any thoughts or guidance.

AT&T Reworks Family Plan to Stay Competitive with T-Mobile | Mac|Life

[NYPorsche]

You spurred me to check with AT&T about this - from what I can gather, this is a significant switch in their way of doing business.

To verify your situation - you have currently have unlimited data on two lines as a grandfathered plan?

The new plans will move you into a shared bucket of data, and require a minimum data bucket of 10GB. With your iPad - it would depend on how you want to tether it - I believe that there is a $15/mo charge per line or device on top of the $100/mo data plan charge - so for three devices, you'd be at $145 and the three devices would be sharing the 10GB of data - any usage over the 10GB will cost you. If you mean setting up a wifi network tethering off one of your cell phones and connecting the iPad to that, then there shouldn't be the additional $15 a mo charge, but again, you're drawing off your 10GB pool of data.

Whether this is a good deal for you or not is going to depend on how much data you go through. I have 5 lines on a 10GB plan, because we connect to wifi whenever possible, this has been more than enough data. This shift in pricing just saved me $95/mo automatically.

As per my conversation with the AT&T rep, the only catch is that to qualify for the new pricing, you can't do subsidized phones anymore. Subsidized phones are available, but your per line fee would be $40 ea/mo instead of $15/mo for each line which has a phone purchased subsidized. If you don't do that, you need to buy your own phone, keep the phone you have or pay full retail for the phone. Over the life of a 2 year contract - the subsidy will cost you $600 (an additional $25/mo x 24 months). Your break even point would be dependent on what phone you want.

All in all - seems like a win for someone like me anyways who doesn't use a ton of data and who is perfectly fine not having the latest and greatest phone.

[widgeon13]

Don't think it does much for me. Just got my wife a new iPhone so will stick with what we have for now. Thanks for the feedback, hope you do save $95/month.

Send me a tip. I'm retired.

[fxeditor]

Here's an Ars Technica article that might help you:

AT&T intros Mobile Share Family Value plan, but read the fine print first [Updated] | Ars Technica

Michael

[widgeon13]

Thanks very much.