AT&T Wireless Ditches Traditional Voice Plans For New Customers

AT&T Wireless is ditching its traditional individual and family share plans for the company’s new Mobile Share plan.

The company will allow existing customers to still take advantage of family share and individual plans without exception. That means if you already use a standard plan you can upgrade your phones, activate lines, and adjust your plans based on already established options. For example, you can increase your traditional family share plan limits and activate a new line for a child or business purposes.

AT&T will still offer a $40 plan for individual lines. That plan offers 450 minutes without texting or data options. The $40 plan is meant to serve customers who don’t need all of the bells and whistles of a smartphone. Basically its grandma and grandpa’s cellular plan.

Moving to non-traditional mobile share plans was only a matter of time for AT&T Wireless. The company’s biggest competitor Verizon Wireless recently ditched traditional cellular plans in favor of shared data options.

On it’s company blog AT&T Wireless explains its new focus:

“In recent years, the way customers use their phones and other devices has changed – a lot.

To address the evolution, we introduced AT&T Mobile Share plans last year. In less than a year, our postpaid customers have connected more than 13 million devices* via Mobile Share plans** – and the number continues to grow daily.

Today, Mobile Share is the most popular plan that new customers choose when coming to AT&T. AT&T offers a variety of Mobile Share plans which include unlimited talk and text for phones. In addition, mobile hotspot service is included at no extra charge for capable smartphones and tablets. With Mobile Share, customers have the flexibility to add new devices to their plan when they choose, such as adding a tablet for only $10 more a month. Customers can choose to connect up to ten devices and select the data plan that best suits their needs for sharing data across those devices.

Beginning Oct. 25, we’re streamlining the plans we offer new customers. Our customers have expressed an overwhelming preference for simplified options that allow them to share data across multiple devices. New customers will have the choice of any of our Mobile Share plans, which start as low as $50 a month for a basic phone or $70 a month for a smartphone – both of which include unlimited talk and text and 300MB of data that can be shared***. In 95 percent of the new customer scenarios, Mobile Share offers the same or better price with additional value.

Do you think AT&T Wireless is making the right decision in moving from traditional phone plans to mobile share accounts?