No more unlimited Plans For At&T

Written by Christian on June 3, 2010 in Technology - No comments

At&T decided to get rid of of it's "All You can eat " data plans ( bas news for Iphone users that do heavy youtubing and video watching) . Instead it will be offering capped  data plans ( the cheapest of which will be $15 versus the $30 plan that is currently being offered to its users)  Did I mention that At&t will now offer tethering to its users ( tethering for the iphone is old news to those that have Jailbroken phones , lol)

AT&T was charging its smartphone customers ( this goes out to all of you Iphone users) a $30 rate for unlimited data usage. Starting June 7th, the unlimited data plan will not be available to new users , however those that currently have a data plan will be "grandfathered" and will be able to keep there unlimited plan , however they have the option to change there data plans for the newer ones without  having to renew contracts ( yay )

The Breakdown :

DataPro: Heavy smartphone users will probably opt for this $25-a-month plan, which offers up to 2GB of data a month at a $5 savings over the current unlimited plan. If you go over your 2GB monthly allotment, AT&T will charge you $10 for an additional gigabyte. No, overage charges are never fun, but it's certainly better than typical per-MB overage rates, which result in those catastrophic $50,000 cell phone bills you see on CNN.

DataPlus: A $15-a-month option that offers 200MB of monthly data, good for (as AT&T puts it) 1,000 e-mails without attachments, plus 150 messages with attachments, plus 400 Web pages, plus about 20 minutes of streaming video. If you crack the 200MB monthly cap, you get another 200MB for $15. 

So, which plan is right for you? That depends on how much data you're using a month, which you can typically check on your smartphone's settings menu (for the iPhone, tap "settings," then "general," then "usage," then scroll down to the "cellular network data" heading)

What about those $30-a-month unlimited prepaid plans for the iPad? They're going away too, unfortunately, to be replaced by the $25-a-month DataPro plan — and that's a bummer, considering the iPad's aptitude at streaming video. But at least AT&T is offering up free, unlimited use of its 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots.

What do you think ? Was this a smart move on AT&T's part ? Share your thoughts