AT&T Lowers Prices While T-Mobile Adds Data, International Texting
A lot of the pain in your wireless bill is being diminished these days, no matter what carrier you use. Perhaps in response to the threat of cheap, internet-based messaging services like WhatsApp, and definitely in competition with each other, AT&T and T-Mobile have just sweetened their deals.
AT&T -- Price Drop On Limited Shared Plan
AT&T took the opening of the South by South West Interactive tech expo to announce that it's dropping the prices on single and dual-line plans. This is undoubtedly in response to T-Mobile's competitive pricing and plans, which coincidentally, became more competitive the day before AT&T's announcement.
Now for AT&T customers who either have one line with a smartphone or share two lines on a single plan, AT&T's Share Value plan now starts at $65 per month for one line and $90 per month for two smartphones. The plan still includes 2GB of shared data, unlimited talk and text within the United States, and the unlimited international messaging plan, which the big wireless carrier recently added in response to the growing threat of WhatsApp and other super-cheap international messaging services taking away customers.
This represents a $15 per month price break for single smartphone owners on AT&T, and it makes the contract plan competitive with a lot of prepaid wireless plans, which require you to own or pay off the total value of your smartphone. However, if you have a whole family on the plan, unfortunately you're not getting a new price break. The Mobile Share Value Plan is still more costly (even though that plan, itself has undergone competitive revisions this year) -- starting at $145 for 10GB of data to share between three smartphones.
Here's a look at AT&T's new plan structure.
The new deals on AT&T's take effect on Sunday, March 9.
T-Mobile -- Offering More, Including International Texting
As mentioned, AT&T's announcement at SXSW comes on the heels of T-Mobile making its wireless data plan more competitive. On Friday, T-Mobile announced its baseline Simple Value plan would now include twice the data allotment than before. This means that the $50 per month plan now comes with 1GB of data.
Perhaps also in response to the growing popularity of internet-based messaging apps, T-Mobile decided to include international text messaging, as well, at no added cost. That now makes three major carriers that have added international text messaging for free -- Verizon, AT&T, and now T-Mobile.
However, T-Mobile, which upended the wireless carrier industry in 2013, might be reaching the bottom of the well here, since it is hiking the price of its completely unlimited data plan by $10 per month. Here's a look at T-Mobile's price structure stacks up to (some of) the competition now.
Now What?
What we've seen late last year until now is that wireless companies are staring to really start to compete. The high-end smartphone market is pretty much tapped (at least for now), and the big four wireless companies are increasingly facing competition from apps, social media, and each other.
According to T-Mobile, whose finance chief Braxton Carter spoke to the WSJ last month, all of these moves are not going to result in a price war. But, now that consumers feel they need to buy internet at home and on-the-go, something close to one would be nice for us.