AT&T Prepaid has launched a new limited-time promotional offer. Uncovered by Dennis Bournique, the plan is offering customers unlimited talk, text, and data with the first 8GB at 4G LTE data speeds each month for $25/month. The catch? In order to take advantage of the offer, subscribers will have to pay for service 12 months in advance at a total upfront cost of $300 plus applicable taxes for your location. The offer is scheduled to be available until 10/21/2019 (Update 11/4/19 -the offer is still available and has been extended with no specific end date listed).
Additional Plan Details And Fine Print
This is a 12-month plan but it is not quite an annual plan. AT&T says the plan will renew every 30 days for 12 months which amounts to 360 days of service.
The plan being discounted regularly sells for $40/month. Other features included with the plan are unlimited calling to Mexico and Canada and free talk, text, and data roaming while in either country. The plan also offers subscribers free text messaging to over 100 countries. Mobile hotspot is included. Unused LTE data from the monthly plan carries over for one billing cycle. Customers that run out of high-speed data can add more at a rate of $10 for 1GB and $20 for 3GB good for 30 days. Add-on data does not carry over.
Video streaming "Stream Saver" is also included with the plan. Customers have the option to turn Stream Saver on or off. With it on, content that AT&T recognizes as video will automatically be reduced to a maximum resolution of about 480p.
Sponsored Data is another available feature with the plan. Sponsored data allows subscribers to browse, stream and view content from data sponsors without impacting a customer's high-speed data balance. The feature can be disabled at any time, however, customers will have data deducted from their monthly balance when they view content that would otherwise be sponsored.
In addition to the multi-month plan promo, AT&T Prepaid is also offering a $15/month discount on both of its unlimited LTE data plans. The $65 plan that does not include mobile hotspot and has video streaming limited to 1.5Mbps or 480p gets reduced to $50/month with the auto-pay discount applied. The plan also includes always-on data prioritization, so anytime the network gets congested, data speeds may be temporarily slowed. The $85 plan that includes 10GB of mobile hotspot, and the ability to stream in HD costs $70/month with the auto-pay discount applied. As a bonus, the plan also comes with 12 free months of WatchTV. WatchTV gives subscribers access to 35+ live streaming TV channels. Data prioritization is applied to this plan after more than 22GB of data has been consumed in a month.
Editor's Take
Multi-month plans have been gaining in popularity in the MVNO marketplace for good reason. They benefit the consumer with cheaper pricing and benefit the provider by reducing customer churn. This is the first time that I can recall a major carrier brand offering such a multi-month plan. At $15/month off of the plans regular monthly price ($180/year), the savings being provided here is a big deal. It makes AT&T prepaid the cheapest major carrier prepaid plan on the market to offer at least 8GB of data. It also puts the plan in direct competition with Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile offers a 12-month plan with unlimited talk, text, and data with the first 8GB each month at LTE data speeds for $240 annually or $20/month. Mint Mobile, however, operates on the T-Mobile network.