AT&T has announced new data plans for mobile Internet, claiming these plans will make it “more affordable to more people…â€, but this is just not so. One giant hole in this make it more affordable idea is there is no longer an unlimited data plan for iPad customers. That kind of makes this a LOT more expensive actually, not more affordable as AT&T claims.
AT&T now offers two mobile data plans: DataPlus, which provides 200 MB of data for $15 per month, with additional 200 MB chunks (or part thereof) costing another $15, and the DataPro plan, which gives 2 GB of data for $25 per month, with each additional GB (or part thereof) costing another $10.
This DOES NOT include tethering to a PC, which is an additional $20 per month, and ONLY available on the “DataPro” plan.
If you already have the $29.99 unlimited monthly plan for you iPad, you can choose to keep it, or the nice people at AT&T will let you switch to the new DataPro plan. How sweet of them!
Forget about streaming that movie over the 3G network!
And personally, I think this makes the iPad 3G a lot less desirable now as well, especially if you use a lot of data! Grated, 2GB of data is a lot, but if you surf a lot, use remote access, download apps, use Skype or other VOIP and other services, you can use that up fairly fast actually.
But what is AT&T thinking here? This is yet another major price increase surrounding Apple products (with the new $375 cancelation fee for iPhone users, the highest cancelation fee in the industry!) With more and more users, you know they are making a lot of money on this, shouldn’t the sheer volume of people make this cheaper? I guess not. Even AT&T said that the iPhone helped rebuild AT&T’s mobile division. I guess they are tried of that now?
But this just screams for Apple to leave AT&T in the dust. And maybe that is what AT&T is expecting? Get the money now, while they still have the exclusive, because when these devices start showing up on other carriers, you can be sure there will be a large stream of people leaving AT&T when their contract expires, and I am sure AT&T knows that.
What other reasons could AT&T have for making this so expensive now? Obviously to discourage use. And the only reason for that is the lack of upgrades to the network ay time soon.
It seems that AT&T has once again returned to that company that Lily Tomlin once made fun of so long ago. You can see a clip here.
“We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company.”
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