# AT&T introduces Unlimited Your Way mix and match style plans



## techguy88 (Mar 19, 2015)

AT&T has retired their old shared data plans (both Unlimited & Mobile Share Plus) and replaced them Unlimited Your Way & a 4GB plan.

*Unlimited Your Way:* You can chose from AT&T Unlimited Elite, AT&T Unlimited Extra or AT&T Unlimited Starter for each individual line on your account. The amount you see is the amount you pay per line (plus taxes and fees.)
The only major change (I can tell so far) is for tablets. You can still add a tablet line for $20/mo/tablet however they are subject to the features of AT&T Unlimited Starter. This means data prioritization is always on and you can't use the tablet as a mobile hotspot.
If you currently have the older, shared Unlimited Elite or Unlimited Extra plan and need the Premium Data (100GB/tablet for Elite or 50GB/tablet for Extra) and Mobile hotspot for the tablets (30GB/tablet for Elite, 15GB/tablet for Extra) then do not migrate to the Unlimited Your Way plans.
Same goes for those on an older unlimited plan like Plus or &More Premium that includes mobile hotspots for tablets.


*4GB Plan:* This plan can't be mixed with the Unlimited plans. Each line on the account gets 4GB of data with unlimited talk & text.
This data can be used for the device itself and/or mobile hotspots.
No matter how the data is used if the individual line goes over 4GB within a billing cycle there is an overage charge of $10 for every 2GB the line runs over.

There is no Rollover Data with this plan.
If you have 4 lines or more this plan doesn't make sense to have. You are better off with getting the same Unlimited plan (either Starter or Extra) for all lines.
4 lines on the 4GB Plan costs $160/mo with autopay & paperless billing before installment plans, add-ons, taxes and fees.
If you have 4 lines on your account and don't need the Mobile Hotspot feature you can get Unlimited Starter on all lines and the total cost would be $140/mo
If you have to have Mobile Hotspot but don't need the top tier plan you can get Unlimited Extra for all 4 lines and the cost would be $160/mo. That is the same cost as having all 4 lines on the 4GB Plan.
If you take advantage of the mixing and matching for the Unlimited plans you can have Elite on 1 line, Extra on the 2nd line and Starter on the 3rd & 4th lines for the same $160/mo. This combo would net you free HBO Max.


For more information on how DirecTV (and the other AT&T video products) can be impacted by migrating to Unlimited Your Way see this post.
*Comparison Chart of the Unlimited Your Way & 4GB Plan *


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

Wow, continue to be glad I left AT&T Wireless 3 years ago. They are high priced and the plans overly complex.


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## techguy88 (Mar 19, 2015)

NR4P said:


> Wow, continue to be glad I left AT&T Wireless 3 years ago. They are high priced and the plans overly complex.


Naturally post-paid wireless plans will be more expensive than prepaid and MVNOs because the post-pad customers are placed on higher priority levels than the pre-paid & MVNO customers. They also get device financing options that the pre-paid/MVNO market typically doesn't offer.

With AT&T their FirstNet network gets the highest priority over everyone at all times. Business customers get higher priority over post-paid customers. Post-paid customers gets higher priority than pre-paid (AT&T Pre-Paid/Cricket) and MVNOs (Consumer Cellular, Straight Talk, Tracfone, etc.) Verizon & T-Mo have similar structures but they don't have a dedicated First Responder network like AT&T does.

Complex? Actually no. Right now AT&T has the least complex setup out of the big three. Verizon can be complex when looking at their two mid-tier plans because you have to figure out the features you want to maximize them. T-Mo is the most complex when the user requires more benefits or features not included in the base plan. This is where T-Mo's add-on charges come into play. All three carriers have autopay & paperless billing discounts for their Unlimited plans. The plans cost more without having both active.

Depending on the features a family may need AT&T can actually be the cheapest post-paid carrier out of the three. Most people like T-Mo's pricing but if you need say 30GB of 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data then T-Mo can be more than AT&T. AT&T and Verizon both offer 30GB of 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data as standard in their top tier plans while T-Mo only offers 20GB as standard for their top tier plan. Also if you are using the device at the same time it is being used as a Hotspot then T-Mo will prioritize the device data before the hotspot data.

A single line user that needs 30GB 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data can pay AT&T $85/mo for Unlimited Elite, Verizon $90/mo for Get More Unlimited or T-Mo $95/mo for Magenta Plus with their $10/mo 10GB 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data add-on. For a heavy data user and from a cost perspective AT&T is the best option here.
A family of 4 that needs 30GB 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data per line can pay AT&T $200/mo ($50/mo/line) for Unlimited Elite, Verizon $220/mo ($55/mo/line) for Get More Unlimited or T-Mo $210/mo for 4 lines on Magenta Plus ($170/mo) + Extra 10GB of 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot Data at $10/mo/line ($40/mo extra in total.)
Here is an overview comparison of all the carrier's unlimited plans based on advertised features


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## NR4P (Jan 16, 2007)

The charts are far more than most people will even think about. People want 3 things. Unlimited talk, unlimited data, unlimited text. Hotspot high data usage is not as popular as the past times.

Selecting the mid plan of each with 3 lines:
AT&T= $150- no video benefit until Elite
Vz= $165-you get Disney+
Tmo= $120-you get Netflix or Quibi and unless they removed it, unlimited GoGo on flights (someday we will fly again)

Then compare each of the 3 Senior plans not shown above, again Tmo is the leader with lowest best package.

I cut my bill in half leaving AT&T 3 years ago and going to Tmo. 
The other benefit of Tmo is free international roaming. Free text, unlimited data (granted it is slow but maps and WhatsApp work great for free calls home) and calls back to USA for 25c/min.

AT&T charges $10/day but with taxes its $12/day. Plus $5 extra plus taxes per line after the first line. A 10 day trip cost a fortune.

The only downside of Tmo is some areas don't have great coverage. I give AT&T/Vz an extra point for coverage but that gap narrows daily due to Tmo building out 600/700Mhz rapidly. Tmo/Sprint has caught up fast.


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## techguy88 (Mar 19, 2015)

NR4P said:


> The charts are far more than most people will even think about. People want 3 things. Unlimited talk, unlimited data, unlimited text. Hotspot high data usage is not as popular as the past times.
> 
> Selecting the mid plan of each with 3 lines:
> AT&T= $150- no video benefit until Elite
> ...


I guess you are talking about Verizon's Play More plan and not the other mid-tier Do More plan. Both cost the same it is just Play More has The Disney Bundle and Do More gets you 50% connected devices like tablets, watches and 600GB of cloud storage.

Magenta has Netflix Basic (SD 1 Screen) or Quibi but the customer choses. The three senior plans are good for 2 lines maximum according to their website (which is why I excluded them from the table.) Usually 3-4 line setups are more common with non-seniors who have a family or split a bill to make things cheaper.

Really right now when you look at the various Unlimited plans the user just needs to chose one that best fits them. Everyone values different things.

After my trade-in credits start to make my Samsung Galaxy Note20 5G free I plan on switching 3 of my lines to Unlimited Starter ($35/mo/line) and keeping my line at Unlimited Elite ($50/mo). The other 3 users are very light data users with no need for a Hotspot. This way I only pay $155/mo instead of the $200/mo I currently pay by having all lines on Elite. I would save $45/mo with the new Unlimited Your Way and before tax would be cheaper than having all my lines on Magenta Plus with T-Mo which is $170/mo for 4 lines.

Plus I have always gotten more benefit out of HBO than Netflix. Netflix I never keep all year around but I always had HBO regardless of the provider. So having a plan that includes HBO saves me money because I would still have it regardless.

If I were to ever leave AT&T I would probably go to Verizon with the primary reason is T-Mo and formally Sprint have the worst coverage in my area. Secondary reasons are the entertainment perks Verizon has. I keep Hulu longer than I keep Netflix and honestly Disney+ is looking like a keeper to me (mainly for Marvel & Star Wars). On Verizon I would most likely have Get More ($55/mo) with the other 3 lines on their Start Unlimited plan ($35/line/mo) which is $160/mo for 4 lines. (The other 3 lines do not need 5G.) I also pay yearly for Apple Music so this setup would have more value to me than T-Mo's Magenta Plus plan.

While most of the country would prefer free Netflix I'm an odd-ball that finds more value in HBO (now HBO Max), Baby Yoda and Apple Music


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