AT&T appears to be overhauling its prepaid plans. While that might sound like the most boring thing you’ve heard all day, it’s actually great news for anyone who wants a simple, SIM-only plan on a good network for dirt cheap.
Fierce Wireless noticed earlier this week that AT&T’s GoPhone prepaid offerings are being rebranded, to the much more sensible AT&T PrePaid brand. It seems that there are also structural changes to the plans coming with the overhaul, and a Redditor found this flyer with the new PrePaid plan rates.
The $35/1GB plan is a brand-new low-price offering, and it looks good for anyone who doesn’t use much data. $35 per month is comfortably AT&T’s cheapest plan, and is far less than the Unlimited plans from other carriers that start around $70 per month.
For your $35, you get unlimited talk and text in the US, free texting to most of the world, and 1GB of high-speed data. After you burn through your data allowance, you’re throttled to 128kbps speeds (enough for email and messaging, but not much else) rather than charged overage fees.
The $45 is a good step up plan for heavier users that’s still a bunch cheaper than a postpaid unlimited plan. 6GB of data is enough for the vast majority of users, and you also get free roaming to the US and Canada, which is a perk you don’t normally see on prepaid plans. The same throttling applies after you hit the data limit.
The one plan worth steering clear of here is the $60/Unlimited rate. It’s far from unlimited: your speeds are capped at 3Mbps, and there’s a soft cap of 22GB of data per month, after which you may be subject to throttling. For that much per month, the postpaid unlimited plans from Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint offer way better service for very little extra.
All three plans are already available on AT&T’s website under the older GoPhone branding. It’s unclear if or when a change to PrePaid branding is coming.
