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AT&T streamlines its smartphone installment plans
AT&T's current Next installment plans are a little bewildering, to put it mildly. Do you want to trade in at 12, 18 or 24 months? How about a downpayment and installments for 28 months? Mercifully, the carrier knows what a mess it made. As of June 9th, it's streamlining its installment plans to give you just two choices. The first, Next Every Year, is for habitual upgraders: you can get a new phone every 12 months if you agree to a 2-year payment plan. The regular option, just called Next, lets you upgrade every 2 years if you're willing to make payments over 30 months.
New AT&T plan makes it cheaper to share smartphone data off-contract
AT&T's current Mobile Share plans can be quite expensive for families and small offices that don't want to be tied to a contract. However, service is potentially more affordable through a new plan launching Sunday. The tier starts at $130 per month with two off-contract lines for new customers (existing contract customers can also sign up) and 10GB of shared data, but it costs a more modest $15 per extra line instead of the regular $25; the carrier reckons that a family of four could save anywhere from $40 to $100 per month over the regular rates. You can go for more than 10GB of data if your clan craves extra bandwidth, too. It's not clear if AT&T's deal will be enough to lure families away from low-cost carriers like T-Mobile, but it's certainly a better offer than before.
AT&T now offering Next upgrades within six months for existing contracted customers
AT&T is looking to make its Next smartphone payment plan a little more prominent. You'll be eligible to hop on-board the Next bandwagon in a mere six months and start swapping handsets sooner, if you were already under a two-year service agreement before January 18th. If you walked out of an AT&T store this morning with the carrier's typical contract, well, you're stuck with your handset for the next 20 months. We imagine that somewhere, surrounded by magenta, John Legere is smiling.
AT&T's lower off-contract pricing and revamped Mobile Share plans launch next week
Whether or not you buy into T-Mobile CEO John Legere's UnCarrier strategy, we can't dispute the fact that it's at least making waves in the US wireless industry. Some of the network's biggest competitors are responding with new strategies of their own, and AT&T is one of them. Starting next Sunday, the GSM giant will make a few noticeable tweaks to its Mobile Share and Next plans. What's on the menu for December 8th? Quite a bit, so let's break it down. Under the current plans, your per-smartphone cost goes down as your data plan goes up; for instance, you pay $50 per smartphone on the 300MB plan, but only $30 if you're on any plan that's 10GB or higher. And as it stands right now, you still pay that same amount after your contract expires. With the new changes, you can tack smartphones onto your plan at a flat rate of $40 a pop, but you get a $15 discount on each one if you aren't in a contract. (AT&T informed us that as soon as your commitment expires, the rate is automatically taken off, so you don't need to call in to make the adjustment.) Basic phones are lower too, seeing a drop from $30 per handset to $20. Along with this change, the base cost for each data tier has moved as well; we'll add a table after the break to show what's different. The higher tiers get a significant drop to make up for the additional per-device charge, so keep that in mind if you have a lot of smartphones on your plan. On the other hand, the lower tiers become more advantageous when you add more lines. There's also a new 8GB plan that fits right in between the 6GB and 10GB options.
Sprint launches its 'One Up' plan for early upgraders
Sprint's "One Up" early upgrade program, Big Yellow's offering in the style of Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T, has just gone live. While it's currently only available in-store, customers can upgrade to a new smartphone every year, while snagging unlimited talk, texts and data for $65 per month. There's no down-payment to speak of, instead the cost of the latest tech will be spread out as an additional charge each month. Now, of course, we just have to wait for some shiny new phone launch that'll compel people to make the switch. [Thanks, Dirk]
AT&T and T-Mobile reveal iPhone 5c and 5s installment pricing
Those who frequently upgrade their iPhones will be happy today -- AT&T and T-Mobile have just disclosed their installment pricing for the iPhone 5c and 5s. Subscribers to AT&T Next will pay nothing up front, with monthly payments ranging from $22 per month for a 16GB iPhone 5c to $37 for a 64GB iPhone 5s. As usual, Next members can leap to a new device every year. T-Mobile hasn't provided its full pricing, but says that customers can buy a 16GB iPhone 5c for zero down and $22 per month over two years; the 16GB iPhone 5s costs $99 down and $23 per month. You'll still have to wait until either September 13th (for the iPhone 5c) or the 20th (for the 5s) to purchase from either carrier, but at least you won't have to deal with the hassles of a contract.
AT&T lowers Next device pricing, just happens to trump Verizon
Competition can be a beautiful thing. AT&T's Next upgrade pricing hasn't looked good when compared against Verizon Edge in the weeks since launch, but today is a different story: the carrier has quietly lowered the monthly payments for some devices. While the company hasn't said which hardware is cheaper, the Galaxy S 4 and iPhone 5 have dropped from $32.50 per month to $27. Prices are down for BlackBerry and Nokia devices as well, a tipster says. As MacRumors notes, the bargains are rather convenient. While AT&T isn't offering as good a deal as T-Mobile, a 16GB iPhone 5 now costs $1 less through one year of Next payments than it does with a similar Verizon Edge plan. You'll want to act soon if you like what you see, too. AT&T tells us that this is a promotion; although there's no firm end date for the discounts, we wouldn't count on these rates lasting forever. [Thanks, Anonymous]
AT&T Next to offer yearly upgrades as part of new monthly installment plan
Could it be that T-Mobile's efforts aren't going unnoticed in the wireless community after all? Less than a week after John Legere unveiled Jump -- and just hours after we heard rumors about Verizon's forthcoming upgrade program -- AT&T has taken the wraps off of AT&T Next, an upgrade program that begins on July 26th. Next takes some elements of Jump and the UnCarrier's monthly installment model and adds its own spice to it. So here's how it works: instead of paying for a subsidized phone or tablet and agreeing to a two-year contract, the retail price of the device gets split up into twenty separate monthly payments that get added to your standard bill (so yes, it's still technically a financial commitment -- just done in a different manner). You can pay off the phone faster, if you prefer, or just stick out the 20-month period. As an example, the Samsung Galaxy S 4 will cost you $32 a month on top of your standard wireless plan. While that doesn't sound like a bedazzling option, AT&T is hoping to sweeten the deal by letting Next customers trade in their current handset or slab after the first year of use and swap it out for a fresh model. This won't cost you anything up front, but it resets your monthly payment plan back to month zero. We asked AT&T if these plans will come with any other hidden restrictions or if certain features will be shunned in favor of the traditional contract, and we were assured that they would remain the same across the board; we even confirmed that grandfathered unlimited data plans are still allowed on Next. As for other matters of fine print, all tablets and phones (including the iPhone) are available through the program, and you won't have to worry about upgrade or activation fees, though the standard credit check applies. Small business customers won't be able to take advantage of Next at the time of launch, but AT&T tells us that it's coming and we'll have it by the end of the year. It also appears likely that this isn't meant to be an eventual replacement to the existing two-year contract option. Your move, Verizon.
