AT&T develops new prepaid unlimited wireless plan

I'm speechless. I predicted a pricing war with no contact services early this last year, but I never expected it to come to this.

I was part wrong though. I also predicted the divorce of carriers and handsets along with no contract services being a better deal than. But hey, I was somewhat right. I am still shocked that prices got this low and with unlimited minutes! I never expected this!

 

Looks like "unlimited pre-paid" is the next big marketing scheme. In Switzerland, Swisscom just launched a flat-rate pre-paid for $3/day unlimited calling in all Swiss networks. It's a little more expensive (AT&T's would break down to $2/day) but Swisscom's goes on a day rate, not monthly...

Swisscom Residential Customers - NATEL® Easy BeFree.

 

Wow, I guess they are looking to get alot of customers that can't get account plans with this & I agree Simon5282 I can see price wars coming soon & hope it bleeds over to the account customers as well but for the price I would get a Go phone for unlimited talk & text vs an account.
The article doesn't say if it's nationwide or just in CA, does anyone know off hand?

 

And it looks like T-Mobile will be joining the party. Not sure about contracts, but $50 for everything is nice.

T-Mobile’s Rumored Project Dark: handsets and rapid network expansion? [UPDATED] : Boy Genius Report

 

...and the announcement of Verizon and Sprint's unlimited pre-paid is coming in 3 - 2 - 1 .......

 

I like the way they put this on prepaid. Keeps their contract (we don't have to serve you because you HAVE to be our customers) customers from switching all at once. So, if I have ATT I cannot get this plan because if I did I would have to pay an ETF or pay my current plan plus my prepaid one.

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe they will have a special secret plan in their system to allow this deal so they do not piss to many people off.

How will you pay for this. Will they have special cards for this? Can you set up automatic payments via credit card? Will you buy regular cards and they deduct the cost of this per month?

 

My only question is what would happen if you get a plan like that and then put the SIM into an iPhone.

 

These pricing wars are getting interesting & it looks like using pre-paid customers is a better option over contract customers.
I wonder if there is a reason they would use this over lowering the costs of contract plans? Maybe when the economy gets better then can cut them off easier? Or is it to go after the Metro PCS, Trac-fone etc companies?
Will be interesting to see how far this keeps going.

 

Primarily, it's because prepaid phones aren't as heavily subsidized as contract plan phones. Also, I'd hazard to guess that the bulk of prepaid customers aren't heavy users, anyway.

 

Heavy users? well once you have the option of an unlimited plan for $60/month wouldn't you move from your more expensive contract plan to this prepaid plan and have a better chance to become a heavy user?