AT&T bumped up the value of its most expensive unlimited data plan by making its “Unlimited Elite” plan truly unlimited, following T-Mobile’s move with its truly-unlimited Magenta Max plan.
On other plans, unlimited data generally has a catch; beyond a certain threshold, it’s deprioritized, meaning it slows down when a tower gets crowded. That’s not a true throttle, because if the tower isn’t crowded, your data will be just fine. But it can still reduce your service quality.
Unlimited Elite, at $85 for the first line, is the top level of AT&T’s three Unlimited plans. It previously had 100GB of priority data, and the number of people who can use more than 100GB without hotspot mode is pretty slim. I think you could do it if you’re primarily using your phone as a Roku and wirelessly casting your free HBO MAX to your TV all the time, but that’s really an edge case.
Along with the truly unlimited data, Unlimited Elite has stopped throttling video resolution and has a 40GB hotspot allowance, up from 30GB.
As with all of the major carriers’ unlimited plans, AT&T’s plans get cheaper per line as you add more lines. This $85 plan for the first line becomes $50/line if you have four lines, for example.
“It’s like we said, a strong T-Mobile is great for customers. Now, when will Verizon, Comcast, Charter decide to step up?” T-Mobile’s EVP for consumer markets Jon Freier said in a statement.
Verizon’s plans currently have a 50GB deprioritization threshold, which is already a lot. The recent Ericsson Mobility Report says average usage in the US is 11.1GB.
So AT&T (and T-Mobile) are able to offer perceived customer benefits here without much actual change to their network usage. In my experience, ‘truly unlimited’ does matter because to this day, no average user knows how much a gigabyte is. On unlimited plans, people stop stressing out and just use however much data they feel like.
If you only have one or two lines, it’s worth taking a look at your actual usage and comparing it to cheaper plans from virtual network operators. Our story on The Best Cheap Phone Plans for 2021The Best Cheap Phone Plans for 2021 features a number of options that cost well under $85.
