Some wireless plans have aged better than others. Has yours?
The nationwide wireless carriers rewrote their unlimited-data wireless plans but didn't really retire their older ones. Do you have the best deal?
Some wireless plans have aged better than others. Has yours? The nationwide wireless carriers rewrote their unlimited-data wireless plans but didn't really retire their older ones. Do you have the best deal? Check out this story on USATODAY.com: https://usat.ly/2o2lOgU
Rob Pegoraro, Special for USA TODAY Published 10:01 a.m. ET Aug. 23, 2018 | Updated 11:18 p.m. ET Aug. 26, 2018
hands holding and using a smartphone at night(Photo: Getty Images)
When all four of the nationwide wireless carriers rewrote their unlimited-data wireless plans over the past few weeks – making them more complex and, in their cheaper forms, more limited – they didn't really retire their older plans.
Although new customers can't decline these new offerings from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, subscribers to their old plans can keep them, just as they could through earlier rate changes.
That's not always a good thing – the unlimited-data plans that AT&T and Verizon once sold, now each $90 factoring in unlimited-texting-and-calling packages, cost more than their latest unlimited options. But in certain other situations, holding on to a grandfathered plan can save serious cash.
For example, if you switched to an unlimited-data plan in late February 2017, after Verizon's return to selling uncapped data goaded its rivals into sweetening their unlimited deals, you probably have a better bargain than what you'd get today. If so, ignore your carrier's enticements to switch.
T-Mobile, for instance, offered unlimited data plus HD video streaming and 10 GB of LTE mobile-hotspot use for $70 – taxes and fees included. Today, that would cost $85.
As recently as January, Sprint offered unlimited data with HD streaming and 10 GB of hotspot for just $60; now that's $70, although it does up the hotspot quota to 15 GB.
Verizon's unlimited deal then cost $80 and also included 10 GB of hotspot use; the closest equivalent now runs $85, except with 15 GB of hotspot use.
AT&T, however, has cut the price of its hotspot-enabled unlimited-data option from $90 to $80, and that's persisted through the last round of changes.
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But many users still find that limited-data plans work better –their allotments more than cover their data consumption, something you can check by consulting your bill, but they cost $20 or $30 a month less. AT&T and Verizon even sell them to new customers.
A survey of 1,176 subscribers released July by the research firm Cowen and Company found that only 56.3 percent of them were on unlimited plans. At AT&T and Verizon, both of which still offer cheaper limited plans to new customers, the figures were much lower: 53.4 percent and 47.5 percent, versus 80.2 percent of Sprint subscribers and 85 percent of T-Mobile's.
"There have been periodic efforts by carriers to move them from legacy plans," wrote analyst Jeffrey Moore, founder of Wave7Research, in an e-mail. But they've made little difference, he added. "You'd be surprised how many Verizon and AT&T customers are still on shared data plans."
He noted one case of enthusiasts profiting especially well from a long-gone option, the "Framily" shared-usage plan Sprint launched in 2014 that let you build a group of up to seven unrelated people to max out the per-line discount on either 1 GB per line or unlimited data. Today, four years after Sprint quit selling Framily in 2014, Sprint customers still match up with other Framily members on a Reddit forum.
Moore also called out a plan that's aged especially badly, also from Sprint: the "Simply Everything" plan it introduced in 2008, which runs $100 a month for unlimited data.
Timing when to change plans remains difficult, however. The Cowen survey offers one reminder: Respondents' single-line bills, taxes and fees included, averaged $104 a month for iPhones and $93 for other smartphones. That strongly suggests many remain on older, pricier rates.
A mirror lends me another reminder: I'm one of those T-Mobile subscribers who didn't jump on that $70 T-Mobile One rate when it was available.
(Disclosure: I also write for Yahoo Finance, a property of Verizon's Oath media division.)
Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at @robpegoraro.
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