The Sprint/T-Mobile merger talk is dying down, and with good reason: competition in the U.S. mobile space is now benefiting consumers immensely. Led by T-Mobile, U.S. mobile providers are now dropping prices and introducing new pricing schemes with an eye toward sweeping up those last few prospective American smartphone users while increasingly going after other carriers’ subscribers.
T-Mobile this weekend announced that it has upped its data caps for its Simple Choice plans and now AT&T has also announced a price drop for its individual smartphone plans.
AT&T customers who sign up for a one-device line will now pay only $65 for unlimited talk and text as well as a capped 2GB of data. This price is down from the $80 per month the service cost just days ago. The cost for the same service for two devices costs $90. This price reduction follows AT&T’s announcement last month that it has cut prices for its family and business plans.
“We’re continuing the trend of offering more value to our new and existing customers.,” said David Christopher, CMO at AT&T Mobility. “Not only are families and small businesses able to save more on their monthly data plans, we’re now delivering that same great value to individual customers on the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network.”
AT&T’s new offering is a nice windfall for AT&T customers, but it doesn’t quite match the prices T-Mobile recently announced. For customers with a single line at T-Mobile, 3GB of data costs only $60. What’s more, hitting that limit at T-Mobile results only in significant data throttling – not the high overage fees charged by AT&T.
AT&T’s broader network coverage in the U.S. will likely help make up for this price discrepancy, though the company will no doubt have to endure further insults from T-Mobile CEO John Legere over pricing and data caps.