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bigelarkin's profile

Scholar

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232 Messages

Saturday, April 26th, 2014 5:36 PM

Can I save some money switching to the Next Program

Right now I'm kind of paying like $97.00 dollars for my cell.  I was wondering if I swtich to one of the AT&T Next  Program, would my bill drop a little if I go with the AT&T Next Program and stay with my current voice, data and messaging plan?

 

AT&T Next 12  with a iphone 5s 32GB would my montly bill be $67.50 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 

AT&T Next 18  with a iphone 5s 32gb would my montly bill be 58.85 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 

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Master

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4.1K Messages

10 years ago


@bigelarkin wrote:

Right now I'm kind of paying like $97.00 dollars for my cell.  I was wondering if I swtich to one of the AT&T Next  Program, would my bill drop a little if I go with the AT&T Next Program and stay with my current voice, data and messaging plan?

 

AT&T Next 12  with a iphone 5s 32GB would my montly bill be $67.50 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 

AT&T Next 18  with a iphone 5s 32gb would my montly bill be 58.85 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 


OK, since you mention the specific phone this can be fairly easy to compute.  The iPhone 5s 32GB currently costs $750 to purchase of contract.  Now to compute the monthly NEXT program cost, you divide that $750 but the number of months in the program.  This can be a little confusing because the NEXT 12 program is a 20 month purchase option (with "upgrades" available at 12 months), and the NEXT 18 program is a 24 month purchase option (with "upgrades" available at 18 months).  So if we divide $750/20 you get about $37.50/month for the NEXT 12 program.  If you divide it by 24 months you get about $31.25/month.

 

Next we have your monthly voice and text fees.  Those will be $15, or $25 depending upon your data package your sign up for as well.  If you get a data package of less than 10GB, the voice/text costs $25/month.  If you get 10GB or more data per month, your voice/text fees are $15/month.

 

Lastly you have the data fees itself.  These range from $20-$375/month depending upon how much data you sign up for.  I would suggest that with an iPhone that you not really consider less than 1GB/month otherwise a small mistake can get real expensive real fast. The 1GB data plan is $25/month.

 

If we look at the totals now, you see that for a NEXT 12 iPhone 5s 32GB with the lowest data you will still be paying about $77.50/month (plus taxes & fees).  If you chose to go with the 1GB data plan, it only goes up to about $82.50/month (plus taxes & fees).  Both are still a little less than what you are currently paying, but you didn't mention what your current data plan is.  It sounds to me like you have the $30 data plan which is 2 or 3GB.  To go to a 2GB data plan, that $82.50/month would go up to about $97.50/month plus taxes & fees.

 

As you can see here, this new plan doesn't really save you much money for a single phone plan, but it starts to save you money with multiple phones.  My wife & I both have iPhones and our bill went from $180/month down to under $120/month right now, but we have not upgraded phones yet.  When we upgrade our phones, we will be looking at about $180-185/month with NEXT 18, or about $170 with contract subsidized phones (that we would still have to pay $299 for each when we upgrade).

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Master

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4.1K Messages

10 years ago


@bigelarkin wrote:

My voice plan is the Nation 450 minutes with roll over for $39.99,  then I have Unlimited data for $30, the Unlimited messaging for $20. if you add all of the that  would be $89.99 then plus the $28.85 for the AT&T Next 18


Based on this, you would probably be slightly better off to stay on your current plan, and just get the new contract renewal, and pay the $299 for your new iPhone.  If you purchase your phone with the NEXT program, that charge would be ontop of your service plan.  The only service plans that currently give you a discount for having an off-contract phone are the Mobile Share plans, and to get a Mobile Share plan for you you would be paying $25 voice & Text, $40 (2GB data or $70 for 4GB data) plus your NEXT installment for your iPhone.   If you went with the 2GB data, you would be paying about $94/month (plus taxes and fees) as compared to your current $90/month (plus taxes and fees).  This would reduce your data to 2GB over your curent 5GB (unthrottled LTE with your grandfathered unlimited plan).  If you wanted to have the 4GB data plan, you would be paying $30 more so closer to $125/month (plus taxes and fees again) for the 4GB mobile share plan with AT&T NEXT program for your phone purchase.

 

Granted, you still have to purchase your subsidized phone, but if you amortize that over the 2 year contract, it is still only about $17/month, so if you consider your service + phone, you average $107/month for 2 years with your current plan, and you would pay about $125/month for 26 months with a 4GB Mobile Share plan and a NEXT 18 agreement.  Now if you go longer between phone upgrades, anything over 26 months would mean that you would not be paying that $28.85/month for yoru NEXT installment, taking your bill down to about $95/month (plus taxes and fees) but you woul dhave to make up for paying that extra $18/month for 26 months before you would start to save any money, and you would only be making that up at about $12/month so it would take you another 2+ years without upgrading your iPhone before the Mobile Share + NEXT would save you money.  Would you likely go 4 years without upgrading your iPhone?

 

For you, it would probably save you more money to stay where you are, and sign a new contract for another 2 years when you upgrade your iPhone (assuming that is still an option when that happens).

Expert

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12.2K Messages

10 years ago


@bigelarkin wrote:

Right now I'm kind of paying like $97.00 dollars for my cell.  I was wondering if I swtich to one of the AT&T Next  Program, would my bill drop a little if I go with the AT&T Next Program and stay with my current voice, data and messaging plan?

 

AT&T Next 12  with a iphone 5s 32GB would my montly bill be $67.50 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 

AT&T Next 18  with a iphone 5s 32gb would my montly bill be 58.85 if my current setup with my voice plan or would it be more

 


The next plan is just another way of getting a phone, it does not include service, it short it would be raising your cost by the monthly payment on the device

Master

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4.1K Messages

10 years ago

I just realized that my last response might not have been completely accurate.  I believe I quoted the NEXT 12 as being an 18 month financine, but it is really 20, and the NEXT 18 is 26 months, not 24.  If I did make that mistake, just adust the math to change what you divide the phone cost by to get the monthly installment amount.  It would mean that the NEXT cost will go down slightly (by a few dollars at most).

 

It also shows how the most benefit from NEXT is to keep the same phone as long as possible after it is paid off, with the second largest benefit being that "technophiles" can chose to pay the slightly higher NEXT 12 installments, and in essence "lease" a phone that they can upgrade every year by returning their old one in good shape.  They don't necessarily pay less per month, but they get to upgrade to the latest and greatest new gadget every 12 months.

Scholar

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232 Messages

10 years ago

My voice plan is the Nation 450 minutes with roll over for $39.99,  then I have Unlimited data for $30, the Unlimited messaging for $20. if you add all of the that  would be $89.99 then plus the $28.85 for the AT&T Next 18

ACE - Expert

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64.7K Messages

10 years ago


@bigelarkin wrote:

My voice plan is the Nation 450 minutes with roll over for $39.99,  then I have Unlimited data for $30, the Unlimited messaging for $20. if you add all of the that  would be $89.99 then plus the $28.85 for the AT&T Next 18


Next is not a service plan. It is only a program for buying a phone. If you upgrade via Next, you will be paying full price for whatever phone you buy. If you plan to keep your current service plan, your best upgrade option is the 2 year contract price. 

Scholar

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232 Messages

10 years ago

Thanks for the info.  It looks like my current plan is still avaiable. Since I have signed into my account, have been checking upgrade options.  I was just wondering can you wavie my activation fee and upgrade fee, or can you just do one,  I would be ok paying the upgrade fee? since after july 8, 2014 I will have been with AT&T for 6 years. I was just wondering.  The only thing that I do not like about the 2 year agreement are the $36.00 activation fee, and the $18 upgrade fee, but I know it is only a one time fee. for a new phone.

Professor

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2.7K Messages

10 years ago

You would pay only one fee if you upgraded with a two-year contract, and that is the $36 upgrade fee.  The upgrade fee went up from $18 at least two years ago.

Contributor

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1 Message

7 years ago

What does it cost to get the new GOLD PLAN on an I Phone 6s+? But I don't have direct tv yet.
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