AT&T is hiking its price for users who still have its old unlimited data plan.
AT&T representatives confirmed the move to FierceWireless, which was first documented by DSL Reports. It follows a $5-a-month increase AT&T instituted for that plan last February as it increasingly tries to distance itself from unlimited offerings in favor of metered plans. The latest hike brings the monthly price of the old plan to $40 a month.
“Our Mobile Share Advantage plans and our AT&T Unlimited Plan provide several benefits that our legacy unlimited plan doesn’t,” the carrier said in a statement. “If you have a legacy unlimited data plan, you can keep it; however, beginning March 2017, it will increase by $5 per month.”
AT&T stopped offering its unlimited data service to new customers in 2010, replacing it with a tiered pricing model. The move was largely seen as a reaction to the increasing demands for data among the carrier's growing iPhone customer base—at that time, AT&T was still the exclusive provider of the iPhone in the United States, and the operator fell under withering criticism that its network was not able to support the growing demand for data among its customers.
Last August, it introduced new plans that start at $30 per month for 1 GB of data. A plan with 3 GB of data is offered at $40 per month, and 30 GB of data is $135 per month. Each plan has additional “access charges.”
AT&T last year revived its unlimited data service plan, but only for customers of its DirecTV service. Those users can get unlimited talk, text and data for $100 a month for the first line and $40 per month for each additional line, and a fourth line costs nothing extra.