Gary Killops

AT&T has recently released their new cell phone plan pricing scheme that will go into effect on June 7th of 2010. For $15 every month, subscribers will be able to get 200 megabytes (MB) of data. They will also be able to purchase an extra 200 MB if they go over, but never will any unused data carry over to the next month. So if you only need to use 205 MB in a month, and already paid for just the 200 MB plan, it will still cost you $30 that month, and you won’t get to use the other 195 MB that you paid for. You will be automatically charged, for the extra $15 for every time you go over the 200 MB you paid for, too. So if you use over 400 MB, that month’s data will cost you $45. You will have to closely monitor your usage, to make sure this doesn’t accidentally happen if you are on a budget. These overage charges are said to only even possibly effect 3% of AT&Ts customers, and these are mainly business people who use their iPhones and iPads as modems to connect wirelessly to the internet with their computers anywhere. This tethering option certainly is useful, but of course uses a lot more data than usual users are accustomed to.

This new pricing scheme won’t go into effect for current customers who have already paid for their contracts. Meaning if you have an iPhone with a plan for $30 per month for unlimited data, you will still be paying that until your subscription runs out. After that, though, you will have to go with the new pricing. You may elect to switch over to the new pricing straight away, though.

The average smart phone user uses less than 200MB per month, so your best bet is to start off with the smaller plan, and when you see you are about to go over, you can upgrade to the bigger plan online without resetting your contract. This is one of AT&T’s new features to help customers actually not waste their money, which seems like a great step in the right direction in terms of customer service for them. It seems odd that many people would be angry at new pricing and features that will actually help them in the long run. It’s understandable that change takes a while to get used to, and there is no more unlimited plan, but a majority of people need to actually take stock of how much data they are using on their unlimited plan and realize that the new lower data feature will save them money.