How competition from T-Mobile forced bigger carriers to offer “unlimited” data plans again, and how those plans compare
It's been a weird week in the world of major cell providers. After years of moving away from offering unlimited plans after the rise of data-hungry smartphones …
Context & Ripple Effects
Unlimited data had been disappearing from the big carriers for years as smartphones made heavy usage the norm — by 2015 T-Mobile was even moving users off unlimited plans when they crossed its tethering cap. The reversal started at the edges: AT&T first brought unlimited back in January 2016, but only as a bundle requirement for DirecTV and U-verse subscribers.
The real forcing event was T-Mobile's August 2016 launch of a $70 plan with genuinely unlimited high-speed data, with HD video as a paid add-on. Within six months Verizon had re-entered the market, prompting T-Mobile to add HD video and 10GB of high-speed tethering to its own unlimited plan — a tit-for-tat escalation that this comparison piece now prices out for buyers.
First-order effects
- Verizon and AT&T customers can once again buy unlimited high-speed data from all three major carriers, ending the era where unlimited was either unavailable or gated behind TV-bundle requirements like AT&T's DirecTV offer.
- T-Mobile loses its status as the only carrier with an unrestricted-data flagship, so it immediately sweetened its own plan — HD video and tethering allowances — to defend the differentiator.
Second-order effects
- Competition shifts from whether unlimited exists to what's bundled inside it — video quality tiers and tethering caps become the new levers, exactly the dimensions T-Mobile monetized with its $25 HD add-on.
- AT&T's bundling strategy comes under pressure: if standalone unlimited is available everywhere, tying it to DirecTV or U-verse subscriptions stops being a reason to choose AT&T over rivals.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, carrier differentiation migrates from plan structure (capped vs. unlimited) back to network quality and perks, reversing half a decade of metered-data economics across the US wireless market.
- The episode shows a #4 carrier dictating pricing structure for the whole industry — a template for how aggressive challenger moves, rather than regulator action, reset consumer terms in concentrated markets.
The trend: US wireless pricing is reverting from metered data plans toward unlimited tiers, with T-Mobile's competitive pressure — not regulation — driving the big carriers' reversal.