Mobile Share Questions

I can explain why they did $15/GB overage instead of $10/GB.  Economics 🙂

Only the the 20GB for $200 is only level that is $10/GB level.  All the other plans are higher than that per GB.  If it was $10/GB, people could opt for lower levels and if for some reason would have an overage, pay less per GB in overage than what their tier cost per GB. 

Let's say some one on the 4GB plan uses 6GB of data.  With a $10/GB overage, their data would be

$70 (4GB plan) + $20 in overage = $90 (same cost of paying the 6GB plan)

At $15/GB, thier cost would be $100.

The general idea  is for to opt for higher tier and pay more every month for what they might not use, instead of paying less every month and paying the occassional overage.  A higher overage also helps guide people into those higher tiers.   Which seemed the same motivation of changing the 2GB $20 plan to a 3GB $30 plan.  Even if an account used 2GB per line, the change makes additional revenue of $10 per line.  The change didn't save anyone already using 3GB, just got more money out of new subscribers that didn't need more than 2GB.

Actually the old 2GB plan was $25 per month.  I have two smartphones currently on that plan.  So an overage for me currently would provide more revenue, but if I never exceed my data pool, I the customer save money.

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@bungejulio wrote:
I have a specific question concerning EMO discounts. On the new Shared Data plans, will we get 50% off of the primary line + the data plan or JUST on the data plan?

Thanks!

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Please take a look at your private messages. 

I like the concept, but the pricing scheme for "Mobile Share" makes absolutely no sense for us either.

Switching from 2 separate accounts to a family plan was a wash for us and now switching from a family plan to this "Mobile Share" is a wash as well.  The only thing that actually makes sense for us is switching to Straight-Talk pre-paid (which would save us ~$60/month).

I've been an AT&T Wireless, Cingular and back to AT&T customer for more than ten years now, but there is less correlation now between what I have to pay per month and my actual usage than ever before.

I couldn't agree with you more.  With so many other possible ways to communicate with a data connection, the number of available minutes have become nearly irrelevant for me.  With two lines we use maybe only ~100-150 minutes per month on average. 

Even other features are outweighed by free services.  For text messaging and visual voice mail, Google Voice is a highly superior service.

We currently use the 550 minute plan with each line having the 2GB data plan ($25).  One line has the old 1000 messages for $10 per month, while I use Google Voice on the other.  Our current monthly cost is ~$120.  If we switched to the 4GB or 6GB plan with two lines the cost would increase to $150 or $160 respectively.

I realize unlimited voice is part of the share, but it is a service we would never fully utilize.  That would create an unnecessary additional cost each month.  

All of this would have been so much more customer friendly if AT&T had just simplified sharing with options to add on a Family Shared data pool to your current plan.  For example this would be the current individual data plans being the same cost and amount of data, but shared for all lines in the family plan.  (3GB for $30 or 5GB for $50, etc...)

If I added Unlimited Family Messaging (which is an already available option for $30), my cost would actually be the same under this process. $50(550 minutes) + $10(second line) +$30(shared 3GB) + $30(Unl.FamilyMsg) = ~$120, but I would be saving money because I am not paying for an unneeded feature like unlimited minutes.  This would also save me even more if I were to add my third line for an additional $10.

These Mobile Share Plans are an excellent savings for those currently using an unlimited minutes family plan with multiple data usage devices.  For the rest of us though it does not make much sense paying for a service we would not utilize enough for the additional cost. 

The simplicity of all this should be obvious and only requires me to restate my earlier point, "1GB of data is equal to 1GB of data, there is no more or less consumption of that amount of data regardless of the number of devices involved in using it."  Everything else has seemingly moved to unlimited, but now that there are more devices than ever before using data, it has become a method to earn as much revenue as possible by imposing arbitrary and complicated pricing schemes on that data usage.

I think ATT should be ASHAMED of themselves with this new method of fleecing customers.

Right now I have

1-plan unlimited $30

1-plan 2 GB for $15

1 plan 250 MB for $10

I pay $55 per month.

New plan 4GB monthly plan ($70) and added a smartphone ($40) and a tablet ($10), your monthly bill would be $120.  That's a 100% increase.  Unless you convince me otherwise, you've just lost a customer.