AT&T further improves the appeal of its prepaid plans with multi-month deals
The conditions of the deal/s may have changed since the initial publishing of this post.
The prepaid US wireless service war is heating up... yet again, with two new AT&T plans designed to give Verizon and T-Mobile a good run for their money mere weeks after the carrier slashed the price of its Unlimited Plus option to undercut the latest round of discounts from Big Red.
This time around, Ma Bell is really doing something special, letting its customers save a lot of money in the long run if they don't have a problem paying for multi-month network access upfront. While decidedly unusual for a member of the nation's "big four" wireless carrier club, this strategy is clearly inspired by smaller cellular companies like Mint Mobile.
Unsurprisingly, AT&T doesn't go quite as low as Mint, which currently charges a measly $60 all in all for a 3-month plan including 8 gigs of 4G LTE data a month. Instead, the best the nation's second-largest wireless service provider can do is hook you up with an 8GB monthly high-speed data bucket at $33 when you pay $99 in advance for its new 90-day plan.
Even better, you can bring that monthly fee all the way down to 25 bucks if you're willing to cough up $300 right off the bat and essentially commit to AT&T for an entire year. The online-only offers can be renewed at the same heavily reduced prices as soon as the initial promotional period concludes if you so choose, and the rest of the deal's terms and conditions are pretty straightforward and clear.
Obviously, the advance payments are non-refundable (either in part or in full), and once you hit your 8GB 4G LTE data ceiling, available speeds will be automatically reduced to a maximum of 128Kbps for the remainder of your 30 days. You also get unlimited talk and text within the US, Mexico, and Canada, as well as unlimited text from the US to more than 100 countries, mobile hotspot support, and unfortunately, a 480p cap for video streaming.
In case you're wondering, the aforementioned prices are enough to beat Verizon's 16GB and T-Mobile's 10GB prepaid options, but the comparison is hardly fair. In addition to getting more high-speed data at AT&T's competition, you also don't need to pay for more than 30 days of service at once. Still, Ma Bell does technically offer you the best chance to maximize your long-term savings, which is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: