AT&T Doubling Data on Mobile Share Value Plans in Limited Time Promotion

AT&T Next, still paying the subsidy tax while paying more than full price of the device. Winner winner chicken dinner.

That has been proven false many times on here.

AT&T Next, still paying the subsidy tax while paying more than full price of the device. Winner winner chicken dinner.

This is simply not true. Next worked this way when it was first introduced and was a terrible deal. But it hasn't been like that for quite some time now. If you actually sit down and crunch the numbers, it actually turns out to be cheaper than a traditional 2 year contract.

Gotta appreciate T-mobile for introducing some actual competition into the U.S. cellular market!

I meant vs the old way of signing a 2 year contract. The $200 price for an entry level iPhone 6 vs paying almost $30 a month for 18 months or whatever. I'll have to see what I'm missing here.

This is why next is cheaper:

With mobile share, you pay a base plan fee that constitutes the data, text, and talk buckets for the entire account. As an example, 10GB is $100.

Each line on a mobile share plan has an "access fee." For smartphones under contract, this is $40. For Next, BYOD, or outright purchase, this is $15. So as an example, the 128GB iPhone 6 Plus is $949 outright. On Next, you'll pay 949/20 for Next 12, 949/24(?) for Next 18, etc. on a monthly basis. In any case, what you pay is the full cost of the device by the end of the financing term, since there is no interest. If you do a contract on the same phone, not only are you paying the up front cost of $500, but also $25 a month extra for 2 years as part of the access fee. This amounts to $1100 total. So yes, Next is cheaper, and is not a bad deal.

Someone needs to make a nice graph and detailed explanation and sticky it at the top of the iPhone forum, I swear. This has been explained ad nauseam for months and so many people still miss it or don't understand it.

Make it unlimited and I may switch back. Switched to Tmobile and never looked back.

Please enlighten me. I haven't looked into it too much, but at the price per month times the number of months, you end up paying hundreds more for the phone.

Incorrect. The full price of the phone is just split up into 24 or 20 payments. Search the forums. The math has been done dozens of times now.

Yeah it's a huge ripoff. I didn't see any mention of this when I bought my iPhone 6, so if my bill is higher next month I'm going to be furious. I tried to upgrade my mom's phone for her and noticed this nonsense

It's not a ripoff. It's much more transparent and fair than the old 'subsidy' system which made people think they were buying a phone for $199 ($299 or $399) then charged a higher monthly rate for the life of the phone...even when the 24 months was up and the phone had been paid for.

Now you pay a cheaper rate for 'off contract phones'. When AT&T let people switch the mobile share plans, they basically gave everybody 'off contract' pricing...even if they just bought their phone.

Now if people were naive enough to think they were still think they were getting those discounted rates AFTER they bought at $650 phone with no money down, that's on them.

NEXT is about as fair a way to move from subsidies as a cell company could up with.

Unfortunately, WAY to may people abuse unlimited.

Abuse? You pay for unlimited that you can't use?

Called about an hour ago and switched over to mobile share 30gb (60gb under the promo) happily giving up grandfathered unlimited data on 2 of my lines. My reasoning? Historically, amongst the three smartphone lines on my account (including the two unlimited iPhones), we've never exceeded 11gb's at peak. This gives each of the three of us 20gb each (if split evenly) *and* hotspot functionality on all of our devices that I previously didn't have, *and* I shaved off $20 a month.

So, yes I lost unlimited x 2, but based on my historical usage I'm really not losing anything. The ability to now tether legitimately (and not via jb workarounds) plus the small savings was worth it to me.

Make it unlimited and I may switch back.

NO! Then guys like you can use as much as you want bogging down the network, which nonetheless affects me. What's your excuse for using so much? "Because I can." Unlimited is GONE. Some of us prefer it that way.

iPhone 6 64GB on Next vs. 2 Year Agreement

So let's start with the basics. You get a Mobile Share plan of some number of GB of data - for this example, let's say it's 10GB for $100.

Then you have an option, get the 64GB iPhone 6 with a 2 year subsidized rate plan, or choose Next 12 or Next 18.

Next gives you 0% interest and you amortize the full MSRP on the phone. For this device, that price is $749.99. Each month with Next 12, you'll pay $37.50 for the phone (for 20 months, at which point it is paid off) or with Next 18, you'll pay $31.25 for the phone (for 24 months, at which point it is paid off). You will NOT pay an upgrade fee to get the phone with Next. This is a $40 savings. The line charge for your number is $15/month with Next because you're basically just buying a line and have a separate zero interest financing agreement for the handset. These are unbundled from one another.

In a traditional two year agreement, you pay up front for the device a subsidized price of $299. AT&T takes on the subsidy and you are paying for it - for 24 months via a line charge of $40. That $40 is really like paying $15 + $25 for the subsidization of your device. You also pay an upgrade fee of $40.

Looking at the attachment - you are comparing how much you spend OUT OF YOUR POCKET for the line charge and the device price. It doesn't include the 10GB data plan for $100/month. As you can see, even if you didn't care about early upgrades, using Next gets you a total out of pocket spend of $1109.99 after 24 months, whether you used Next 12 or Next 18 and the two year subsidized phone results in an out of pocket cost of $1299.99. So if you pay outright for the phone, or finance it at zero interest on Next, you save $190.00.

For anyone doing a payback period of 24 months (or longer) I can't really make it clearer than that.