AT&T imposes $10 price hike on most of its older unlimited plans

AT&T is imposing $10 and $20 monthly price hikes on users of older unlimited wireless plans starting in August 2024, the company announced. The single-line price of these 10 “retired” plans will increase by $10 per month, while customers with multiple lines on a plan will be hit with a total monthly increase of $20.

“If you have a single line of service on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by $10. If you have multiple lines on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by a total of $20. This is the total monthly increase, not per line increase,” AT&T said.

AT&T has offered a dizzying array of “unlimited” data plans over the years, all with different limits and perks. While unlimited plans let customers avoid overage fees, speeds can be slowed once customers hit their high-speed data limit. There are also limits on the usage of hotspot data.

The $10 and $20 price increases “affect most of our older unlimited plans,” AT&T said. The list of affected plans is as follows:

• • AT&T Unlimited & More Premium
  • AT&T Unlimited Choice Enhanced
  • AT&T Unlimited & More
  • AT&T Unlimited Choice II
  • AT&T Unlimited Plus
  • AT&T Unlimited Choice
  • AT&T Unlimited Plan
  • AT&T Unlimited Plus Enhanced
  • AT&T Unlimited Value Plan
  • AT&T Unlimited Plan (with TV)

AT&T softens blow with more high-speed data

To soften the blow of the price increase, AT&T said it would let customers who keep their older plans have more high-speed data and hotspot data:

AT&T Unlimited Choice, Choice II, Choice Enhanced, Unlimited & More, and Unlimited Value plans will now include 75GB of high-speed data and 30GB of hotspot data. AT&T Unlimited Plus, Plus Enhanced, Unlimited &More Premium, and AT&T Unlimited (with TV) plans will now include 100GB of high-speed data and 60GB of hotspot data.

Customers may get a better price by switching to one of AT&T’s current unlimited plans, which range from $66 to $86 for a single line before taxes and fees. In 2019, as we wrote at the time, Unlimited & More cost $70 per month for one line while Unlimited & More Premium cost $80 per month for a single line.

The Unlimited & More plans replaced Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Choice in 2018. The 2018 change resulted in AT&T’s entry-level unlimited plan starting at $70 instead of the previous $65. All those plans are affected by the price increase slated for August 2024.

Unlimited & More originally didn’t have any set amount of high-speed data. Instead, that plan was subject to reduced speeds during times of network congestion regardless of how much data the customer used. The more expensive Unlimited & More Premium was given 22GB of high-speed data before possible slowdowns.

Unlimited & More originally did not allow mobile hotspot usage, while Unlimited & More Premium allowed 15GB of high-speed mobile hotspot use. The new increases to high-speed data and hotspot allotments make these older plans behave a bit more like AT&T’s current mid-range and high-end plans.

Limits on current “unlimited” plans

Before deciding whether to switch to a current plan, AT&T customers should examine their limits. For the current entry-level plan titled “AT&T Unlimited Starter SL,” which costs $66 for a single line, AT&T says it “may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy” regardless of how much data you’ve used.

The current mid-range offering, AT&T Unlimited Extra EL, is $76 for a single line and comes with 75GB of smartphone data before possible slowdowns. The high-end Unlimited Premium PL, which is $86 for a single line, does not have slowdowns based on the amount of smartphone data you’ve used.

The above limits don’t apply to hotspot data, which is handled separately. Unlimited Premium PL comes with 60GB of high-speed hotspot data, the mid-range plan has 30GB of high-speed hotspot data, and the entry-level plan has 5GB of high-speed hotspot data. On all three plans, hotspot speeds are slowed to a maximum of 128 kbps once customers use the allotment.

AT&T’s price hike on older plans follows a similar move by T-Mobile. But unlike T-Mobile, AT&T didn’t promise that it would never raise prices on these plans.