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You are here: Home / Everything / Personal / The Dark Side of Unlimited Mobile Phone Plans

The Dark Side of Unlimited Mobile Phone Plans

May 29, 2008 By Stephen Leave a Comment

“Unlimited” is the new black for mobile phone operators (at least until the iPhone Black is released in two weeks), but what are the implications for consumers?  After a surprise overage of $150 last month, I found out!  It seems that I’ve been burning up the airwaves with calls lately, and my rollover pool dried up.  Now I owed them the dough fair and square.

So I called AT&T and asked for a reprieve.  Surprisingly, the friendly (!) rep offered to remove the charges (!) and change my plan.  I could pay $10 or $30 more for a larger pool to chat in or $50 more for “unlimited calling.”  So I asked for details.

Turns out “Unlimited” actually feels kind of limiting, and I’m not alone in my reaction…

  1. (On AT&T) only voice calls are unlimited for $99
  2. The iPhone data plan (which is actually really nice and cheap) is $20 extra
  3. Text messaging is still embarrassingly expensive and limited
  4. This is the real kicker – additional family lines are not available with unlimited calling, so I would have to pay $30 or more extra to keep my wife’s line active, even though she used 8 minutes of talk time last month.

So no thanks, AT&T.  I don’t want to upgrade my calling plan to unlimited and pay $80 more per month.

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Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: AT&T, iPhone, mobile phones, text messaging

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