AT&T joins T-Mobile to drop throttling
This has been a busy week in terms of AT&T news. The carrier, in addition to announcing its latest 5G network roadmap (the sub-6 GHz 5G network now covers 250 million people nationwide and the mmWave 5G+ network reaching 38 cities and 20 venues), made important changes to its top-tier unlimited plan, the Unlimited Elite. The plan now offers 4K streaming, 40 GB of mobile hotspot data (up from 30 GB prior to the update) and more importantly, uncapped, unlimited data without any throttling/deprioritization. The Unlimited Elite plan users were previously deprioritized once they hit the 100 GB mark. Incidentally, AT&T also announced that the International Day Pass, which offers unlimited talk, text and data in over 140 countries, will be free of charge after the first ten days per billing cycle.
The NPD Take:
- AT&T has joined T-Mobile to go fully unlimited on its data plans, leaving Verizon as the only major postpaid carrier to instigate deprioritization on its unlimited plans. Verizon’s top line Get More Unlimited throttles customers when they hit 50GB 4G or 5G data usage during a billing cycle.
- AT&T and T-Mobile’s strategy on going fully unlimited on data plans is a good marketing tool that puts little pressure on the network (especially on 5G networks) considering that only small fraction of users actually hit those usage levels. According to the NPD Connected Intelligence Data Consumption Report, an average postpaid customer consumed only 22.3 GB of cellular data for month, while over 90% of customers consumed less than 50 GB of cellular data.
Mint Mobile strikes again
Mint Mobile, the small MVNO owned by celebrity Ryan Reynolds, continues to charge full-throttle with creative marketing programs. Mint Mobile is typically known for its multi-month plans that offer discounts in return for a 3-, 6- or 12-month subscription, and the MVNO took it to the next level in June when it launched a 20-Year plan for $2500. The whole thing was a marketing stunt; Ryan Reynolds later admitted that they only had 124 people who signed for the 20-Year plan. Mint Mobile, this week followed up with a more realistic service plan promotion, which offers customers who buy a phone and sign up for a six-month plan another 6 months of free service.
The NPD Take:
- Mint Mobile may have a small footprint in the market, but its creative marketing efforts including the digital and TV ads featuring Ryan Reynolds is helping its brand awareness continuously grow. According to the NPD Connected Intelligence Mobility Survey, 15% of US smartphone owners were aware of Mint Mobile. Notably, this stat is higher than several of Tracfone’s sub-brands which have been around for years.