Indulge me.
Been with ATT for 20 years.
Have one of the old coveted Unlimited data plans.
2 iPhones on it and a 3rd dumb phone that is data locked.
Have my daughter on Go Phone plan sans data for her iPhone.
I'm in at $200 a month before taxes.
I'm off contract, have been since October. Eligible for upgrades on 3 phones. Decided to look at the new plans they offer and maybe upgrade some phones.
The way they have restructured the pricing if I were to drop to a 10gb shared plan it would cost me $60 more per month than I'm already paying AND that's without upgrading phones. Less service, more money.
It used to be additional lines were $9.99. They are now $15.00. If you opt for a 2 year contract (the only option if you don't buy a new phone) you lose the "discount" (that I never knew we got nor was it ever itemized on a bill) and the lines get charged a $40.00 "access fee"
If you use the Next plan, where you pay a monthly installment for a new device, (on top of the one time $40 upgrade per device fee) you get the $25 discount but you are paying roughly the same $25 per month for the device. Zero sum gain.
The device used to be baked into your plan cost. Problem is the plan costs have not come down so you are effectively paying twice for the device.
As I was trying to make sense of this the rep actually said to me, "when they explained this whole thing in training I thought, who is going to go for that?, pay more for less service?" He said he asked them to go over it again because he thought he heard wrong.
Mind you one of the reasons I called was to get by monthly reduced.
So I looked around and the only option that makes sense for us is T-Mobile. I can get all 4 lines (including a new device for me) for $140 a month before taxes.
I give up unlimited but I can get enough data for myself under that plan to make it work. One of the reasons I use so much data currently is I have an unlimited plan, ATT's 4G is consistently 30MBS or better up and down around here so I never turn on WIFI because it saves my battery.
I'm pretty much decided that I'm making the switch.