ATT Next Confusion

First of all NEXT is not a "PLAN".  Next is a no interest retail purchase.   Plans are data and line fees with various features.  

You aren't getting the main point....the cost of phone was going up and one way or another the customer was going to pay for it.  The alternate to separating phones from service, was a much higher line fee.  

    The Mobile Share plan, which immediately preceded the Mobile Share Value plan with Next installments, had and still has a $40 line fee with no discount possible    The Mobile Share Value plan is essentially the same as the previous  plan, but offered the discount for being out of contract.   The plan was to transition customers off contracts over 2 years.  

Again, the alternate was raising line fees on all accounts to cover increasing phone costs.

Not $40 line fees, but $50 or more.   

While the retail price of your basic iPhone has remained at $650 for several years, the profit margin has decreased to keep that price.  Word is the new iPhone will break that price.  

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@WantPhone wrote:
But that $40 they claim you magically save did not exist before the next plan. Yes, it's now there so taking next plan keeps it off your bill, BUT it was never there previously. So basically they should say, if you don't choose the next plan, we will charge you a new fee of $40

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@WantPhone

that 40 dollar fee was 25 bucks off if you had a next agreement or were BYOP....  I like @lizdance40 choose most times to BYOP so I didnt have to pay the next fee...  I had 6 lines and a watch and was paying around 200 bucks for 30gb of data with my wifes discount....  Now I am paying almost the same with unlimited data and I get hbo for free...  so really its up to the user to find what works for them.

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If someone doesn't like the Next plan then no one has to buy a phone that way.

You can purchase outright or buy from the manufacturer directly. 2 year contracts are not coming back, ever. This is a fact and reality everyone should get used to. However, no one is forced to buy via Next. Not a single person has to buy this way.

@David606  There are still some out there who didn't exactly blow the curve for the math class.  They don't seem to understand their bill was going to go up, and keep going up, unless contracts stopped being offered and the cost of phones were placed on the customer.  

   They don't see that the cost of service has gone down while phones have gone up.  

You are right, no one has to use Next installments.  I don't.  It keeps my bill rock bottom.    I have to gloat when people with less complain of a higher bill.  I consider it a self inflicted wound and refuse to feel sorry for them.  

Why don't they buy a phone they can actually afford?  Well the carriers have to take a little blame as they have been enabling this nonsense for decades.  Now it's like they cut off a spoiled child.  Tantrums all over the place. 

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@WantPhone wrote:
We did switch our plan and it still went up and we have a hospital employee discount. It didn't go up much per month but it did go up plus we now pay $800 for phones, not $200. AND all but one of us always has an old phone (at least 2 years old). If we all had the next plan, I'd have to add $75 ($25 next * 3 more phones) to my bill a month. On the old plan ($200/2-yr contract) I could have gotten 4 new phones for $800 and upgraded all 4 every 2 years and we'd never have anyone with a phone more than 2 years old. Instead now I pay $800 for ONE phone which I can pass down to one family member after two year and upgrade. That still leaves one person with a 2 year old phone. And two more with 4+ year old phones . It's fine. It works. We aren't the type of people that need the latest and greatest. But my point is, before the next plan, we all always did have the new phone every other year. I haven't come across many who are happy with the next plan. Those who did like it, were those who didn't have $200 up front to get a new phone. Well in my honest opinion, if you didn't have the $200 to spare right then, you probably had other priorities you should have worried about other than the "hot new phone" there was even a FREE option if you didn't take the latest and greatest. So yes, I can see where this plan helped those people, but they sure don't need to be spending $800 for a phone just because it's broken down into smaller payments.

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Yeah I can agree with it to a certain point....  IF you look at it tho its cheaper if folks dont need iphones....  My kids back in the early day of the new plans used 150 dollar asus zen2 android phones. 600 for 4 top end phones  and those were paid off within 4 months of savings.....  I get new phones weekly but I dont pay for them my company does or the OEM sends a test samples.  Personally I am glad contracts are gone and they are gone for good.  The euro price model was always better.