An analysis of the data consumption of AT&T customers has revealed that the recent increase in tariff by $5 per gigabyte by the carrier resulted in lower value for money for customers who use much less data than the average. The analysis was done by Validas, which automatically analyzed several AT&T customers’ bills after the nationwide telecom provider changed its pricing policy from $25 for 2GB to $30 for 3GB. In addition, the lower tier data plan which was initially $15 for 200MB was changed to $20 for 300MB.
The new pricing policy, at least technically, is more economical as it lowers the price per gigabyte from $12.50 to $10. However, the analysis has revealed that the average AT&T customer uses much less data than the limit of 2GB and despite the increase in data allowance, the data usage by customers has not increased. Validas did a survey of over 9000 AT&T users and over 11500 Verizon users and the data usage in both cases was analyzed over the four quarters of 2011.
The data collected revealed that AT&T users consumed a lot less data over Q3 as compared to Q2 but the trend reversed towards the end of the year. Data usage increased by about 20% in the fourth quarter over the third, which is similar to the increase in the second quarter as compared to the first. This implies that it wasn’t the increasing data usage that led to AT&T revising its pricing policy for data plans. However, AT&T claims that overall data usage is increasing at a rate of 40% every year and to accommodate for this, it is offering customers a higher bandwidth cap with a nominal increase in price.
In fact, AT&T believes that this increase will accommodate the customers who use a lot of data as well as those that use only the minimal amount because it feels that even the ones who use the bare minimum will see an increase in their data consumption. However, not all users feel the same way, with many not happy that the company is calling the shots with respect to how much data they use.
Validas is a company that specializes in analyzing the data usage of its customers and ensuring that customers are billed only as per their usage and also guards against phantom charges by carriers. The average savings for a customer delivered by Validas amount to $400 and for big companies like eBay it’s around $2 million; even the State of California saves around $900,000 every year thanks to Validas.
January 27, 2012 at 9:20 am
Increasing the 2nd and 3rd tier packages makes sense. It puts them in line with Verizon. However, AT&T has always defended their pricing structure by stating that increased data usage is why they have to increase prices. One would tend to think then, that AT&T would want to encourage the low end data usage. However, increasing the minimum plan to $20/month for 300MB is a horrible deal.
It is obvious that this change isn’t about the increase in data usage at all, but about money. They will now get a minimum of $20 per month per smart phone user. That is an increase of $120 over a 2-year contract. If you are a current customer and routinely go over your data plan, the new plans will serve you well. However, if you are on the lowest plan and watch your usage, AT&T doesn’t care about you, even though they say they do.