AT&T Confirms You Can Keep Unlimited Data Plans With iPhone 5; Will Throttle After 5GB On LTE

Posted by Rounak Jain on Sep 13, 2012 | Comments (8)

AT&T’s press release announcing the iPhone 5 notes that current subscribers can continue to use their existing data plans with the new iPhone 5. They won’t be forced to choose AT&T’s newly announced shared data plans.

Subscribers who are grandfathered-in to the now-extinct unlimited data plan can continue to enjoy unlimited data on their iPhones, even if they upgrade using AT&T’s subsidised pricing.

The relevant bit from AT&T’s press release:

We offer customers the flexibility to keep the iPhone data plans they already have or choose any of our individual or new Mobile Share plans. We’re proud that more customers choose AT&T for iPhone than any other U.S. carrier and look forward to making iPhone 5 the newest addition to our lineup.

You’d of course be throttled if your usage goes past a certain limit, but that threshold has been increased to 5GB from the earlier 3GB.

iphone-5-4g-lte

This is great news for existing subscribers, who get to upgrade their unlimited 3G data plans to 4G LTE, with the only downside being that you won’t be able to use FaceTime over Cellular due to restrictions imposed by AT&T. The carrier allows FaceTime over Cellular only on its new shared data plans, which are more expensive than the older data plans.

[via TNW, 9to5Mac]

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  • Marcel

    Who cares about FaceTime ova cellular data to be honest AT&T has the best plan & Verizon is ripping their customers off

  • Tom

    Verizon another shining example of CORPORATE GREED!! Glad I left them years ago.

  • old att customer

    I am switching to tmobile family plan this week, 2 lines each with 1000 min and unlimited 4g data and text – $100 before 20% corporate discount. Byebye ATT!

  • http://twitter.com/Canofminus Michael

    ”
    The carrier allows FaceTime over Cellular only on its new shared data plans, which are more expensive than the older data plans.” This depends on how you do your math and what the usage of your phone is. My situation is that I have my phone, 4S and my wife’s 4, and I was paying $30 for unlimited for me and another $30 for 3gigs for her, with my bill coming i at roughly $150 before taxes for talk and data. Combined we would never go over 1gig of data usage, so I switched us to the 4gig shared plan. The monthly plan is the same price, but now both phones can tether. So while I get “less data” per month, I’m getting more use out of the data now.

    • http://rounak.me/ Rounak Jain

      People who’d want to stick to the older plans are mostly the non-family people right? Single user. For them, it’ll definitely be expensive.

  • concerned

    Does anyone know if the throttle after 5GB is to 3G or 2G speeds?

  • Alex

    Yes. But if you jailbreak it when possible just use my3g or some other app and you’ll be able to FaceTime over 3G without a problem. I’ve been using that for about a year now. F*ck AT&T and their extra charges for what should be provided on an unlimited plan!

  • williehot

    I can confirm that AT&T will carry over the data plan, you have to remind them of the change otherwise they won’t check. If your account goes 30 days without the unlimited package being added back on, they won’t have a way to do it.

    I just switched to the Samsung Galaxy S III… for testing ;)