AT&T retools data plans: 300MB for $20, 3GB for $30, 5GB with tethering for $50
Following a recent rumor that we broke right here on The Verge, AT&T is nudging all three of its smartphone data plans starting this Sunday, January 22nd. Currently you can get 200MB for $15, 2GB for $25 …
Context & Ripple Effects
AT&T is repricing its smartphone data ladder effective January 22nd, swapping the 200MB/$15 and 2GB/$25 tiers for 300MB/$20, 3GB/$30, and a new 5GB tier at $50 that folds tethering in. The move lands weeks after AT&T began throttling its heaviest 5 percent of data users down to 2G speeds — a squeeze on heavy users from above that this repricing now matches with a higher floor below.
The timing follows a bruising stretch for AT&T: its bid for T-Mobile USA collapsed under regulatory opposition in December 2011, leaving it to hand over AWS spectrum in 128 markets plus a seven-year 3G roaming deal to the rival it tried to buy. With no acquisition to absorb growth, monetizing each gigabyte on its own network becomes the lever.
First-order effects
- New and upgrading AT&T smartphone customers pay $5 more at the entry tier (300MB for $20 versus 200MB for $15), while mid-tier buyers get an extra gigabyte at the same $30 price point.
- Tethering stops being a separate add-on and becomes a feature of the $50 5GB tier, changing what heavy iPhone and Android users must buy to legally share their connection.
Second-order effects
- Verizon Wireless, which set the metered-data template with its own $15 plan back in October 2010, faces pressure to match both the richer mid-tier allowance and the bundled-tethering structure or cede the high-usage segment.
- T-Mobile — newly armed with AT&T's transferred AWS spectrum and a seven-year roaming agreement — gains a pricing contrast to market against as the value alternative to the two largest carriers' tightening tiers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, per-device tiered pricing gives way to pooled allowances across lines and devices, letting carriers charge for total household consumption rather than individual smartphones.
- Usage caps paired with throttling normalize metered economics on mobile broadband, shifting carrier competition from flat-rate simplicity toward tier engineering and overage management.
The trend: US carriers are dismantling the early-smartphone era's cheap flat-rate data in favor of engineered usage tiers, with tethering and heavy-user management as the profit levers.