If T-Mobile’s goal is to get the wireless industry to ditch two-year service contracts then it’s come a long way toward getting AT&T on board. AT&T this week announced that it will let subscribers ditch their service contracts as long as they’ve been on it for at least six months and as long as they switch to a Next early upgrade plan that lets you buy a new smartphone once a year.
Although critics initially slammed AT&T’s Next plans as a cynical way to milk more money from customers, the carrier greatly upped its Next offerings with the debut of its Mobile Share Value plans late last year that cut your monthly bill by $15 once you’ve paid off your new smartphone’s subsidy.
While this new initiative doesn’t mean that AT&T is planning to ditch wireless contracts all together, the fact that the carrier is willing to tear up two-year agreements after just six months is a pretty remarkable testament to how much the mobile industry has changed in the year since T-Mobile first announced that it was getting rid of wireless contracts as part of its first “Uncarrier” move.
