Are you pay too much for your AT&T phone service? We can help.
AT&T has three different unlimited plans, with a starting plan price at $65, not including taxes or fees. If you are wondering will 5G cost more, the answer is no. However, the features and perks they offer are slightly different from the competition. Are they worth the cost? And what exactly should you be paying?
AT&T spans the majority of the United States with LTE or 5G coverage. Major cities across states like Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas, Florida, Colorado, and California offer 5G coverage. There are small gaps where coverage is untested or at an average of 2 G’s or 3 G’s most of which exist in the northwest such as the southwest corner of Idaho, Southeast corner of Oregon, and Northern sections of Nevada.
Below is a map of their current coverage:
Map of AT&T network coverage from RootMetrics.
One of the things that makes AT&T stand out is the access to 5G being covered with the cost of the unlimited plans. In addition to this, one of the features they offer that no other major companies provide is the suspected spam and fraud alerts which are included in all of their plans. AT&T is also the only company to offer HBO Max subscriptions at no extra charge with their most expensive plan, and in this situation it is not something that expires after a few months and ends up catching you off-guard with the extra fee.
AT&T does offer rollover data for a few of their plans like the prepaid plans.
The starting phone bill cost per month is $65. This is for the most basic of unlimited plans called AT&T Unlimited Start. This plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data but only in the United States, Mexico, and Canada. When the network is busy AT&T reserve the right to slow down your speed. You get unlimited texting from the U.S. to over 120 countries as well as the fraud and spam alerts.
Next up is the AT&T Unlimited Extra. The unlimited plan cost here is $75 per month. The next level up includes the same unlimited talk, text, and data with the same Geographic parameters. However the threshold is 50 GB per month and once you reach that threshold, data can be slowed whenever their network is busy and they do not provide information on what defines “busy”. You get 15 gigabytes of mobile hotspot per phone line as well as the same benefits as the starter plan.
Finally there is the AT&T Unlimited Elite. This final Unlimited Plan gives you the same options as those above however, AT&T doesn’t start throttling your data until you’ve reached 100 gigabytes per month. This is the only option that includes high-definition streaming, with the others limited to standard definition. You get 30 gigabytes of Mobile Hotspot usage per line and they include a subscription to HBO Max.
There can be a line access fee with any of these.
The average cell phone cost per month is roughly the same for a single line but when you are looking into the unlimited Family Plan cost, AT&T does charge less than competitors.
For example, if you opt for the cheapest Unlimited Plan, AT&T Unlimited Starter, up to four lines is only $140 per month with autopay, and with AT&T Unlimited Extra, it is $160 per month, and with AT&T Unlimited Elite it is only $200 per month.
However this does not factor in additional taxes or fees, which can vary based on where you live and based on whether you need to take out a new phone with your plan from AT&T which gets factored into your monthly cost.
AT&T does have prepaid unlimited plans that start at $30 per month which includes unlimited talk, text, and 5 gigabytes of data. This monthly fee does not include taxes and additional fees. You can also opt for the $40 per month plan that gives you 15 gigabytes of data.
If you sign up for auto-pay you can choose the unlimited text, talk, and data Prepaid Plan at $50 per month. If you do not sign up for auto-pay, it will cost $65 per month to include the new line activation. You can add Mobile Hotspot data as an extra feature but it does not include access to the 5G networks. AT&T does not offer 5G access on any of their prepaid plans except for the most expensive which is called unlimited plus.
The unlimited plus plan is $60 per month if you sign up for auto-pay but $75 per month if you don’t sign up for auto-pay. With this plan once you reach 22 GB of usage each month, AT&T can throttle your data speed whenever the network gets busy. This includes the fraud and spam alert as well as HD video streaming, 100 gigabytes of cloud storage, and 10 gigabytes of Mobile Hotspot data.
For the two more expensive prepaid plans, there is a pretty big discrepancy between the non auto-pay price and the auto-pay price. If you do not use auto pay you are allowed to recharge your phone every month with prepaid AT&T cards, credit cards or debit cards, but you don’t need any type of AT&T account. In order to use auto-pay you do have to set up an account with the company.
There is one prepaid iteration that is an online offer where you pay only $25 per month, 412 months with 8 gigabytes of data, rollover data, mobile hotspot availability, fraud and spam alerts, and HD video streaming as long as you pay $300 up front.
The 5g plan cost is included in all 3 unlimited plans from AT&T. This is one area where AT&T is better than competing companies like Verizon or T-Mobile both of which provide access to 5G Networks for almost all of their plans but not the cheapest plans.
When you get into the nitty-gritty of it all, it doesn’t take long before you see that AT&T, just like bigger companies, will slow down data speeds when the network is busy. However, AT&T it’s a little bit more cutthroat in that they have different thresholds based on the plan you have indicative of when your speed will be throttled.
AT&T has the same option to add four lines total to any of the unlimited plans they have the same as Verizon and T-Mobile. But the prices on shared or family plans are comparably less expensive.
AT&T does not compare to other companies when it comes to the perks they offer. Other big cell phone companies provide access to different streaming services for music or movies and with the exception of the AT&T Unlimited Elite plan, AT&T doesn’t offer any of these things.
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