Smartphone Data Plan Prices Increased at AT&T

AT&T [T] has changed pricing on its data plans. These new plans cover all tablets and smartphones. Pricing starts at $20/month which gives 300MB/month. Upping that to $30/Month you’ll get 3GB of data which is likely to be a plan that most opt for. Finally, for those even more consuming users there’s also a $50/month price plan which gives 5GB of data.

The lowest monthly price is not available for tablets which means tablet owners will need to pay at least $30/month for a data connection on the new pricing structure although the older $15/month for 250Mb plan will also be still available for those with a tablet.

Although prices have gone up, data allowance has also gone up as well. Essentially, they have dropped the lower price plans with less data and replaced them with more data at a higher cost.

For smartphones:
AT&T Data Plus 300MB: $20 for 300MB
AT&T Data Pro 3GB: $30 for 3GB
AT&T Data Pro 5GB: $50 for 5GB, with mobile hotspot / tethering

For tablets:
AT&T DataConnect 3GB: $30 for 3GB
AT&T DataConnect 5GB: $50 for 5GB

It isn’t clear why AT&T has changed pricing, but perhaps due to faster smartphones and tablets launching this year, the company could be preparing for users to consume more data. This in turn, will prevent any nasty surprises if data consumption goes up.

As for release dates, these plans will be going live this coming Sunday. For those of you on the older plans, you are sticking to those although it isn’t clear if you will be forced to update when your contract ends.

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