My two year contract with AT&T will be over in July and I can only hope that AT&T will lose its deathgrip on the iPhone before 2012. Until then, I wanted to calculate the premium that I am paying for the privilege of owning an iPhone on AT&T as compared to an Android phone on T-Mobile.
AT&T Individual Plan ($40/month)
- 450 minutes (with rollover)
- 5000 night/weekend minutes
- Unlimited mobile to mobile
- 2 year contract to start new service
- iPhone requires unlimited data plan for an additional $30/month
T-Mobile Individual Plan ($30/month)
- 500 minutes
- Unlimited night/weekend minutes
- Unlimited mobile to mobile
- No contract required
- Android phones require an unlimited data plan for an additional $25/month
T-Mobile’s basic plan gives you more for less and on top of that, their required data plan is cheaper. This means the minimum phone bill for an AT&T iPhone plan is $70/month while the minimum phone bill for a T-Mobile Android plan is $55/month (not including taxes or below the line fees). That is a difference of $15/month (or to put it in terms that wireless carriers can understand, $360 over the course of a 2-year contract).
It doesn’t stop there either; what about text messages? T-Mobile will let you bundle talk, unlimited text, and unlimited web for $60/month which means that you can effectively add unlimited text messages for $5/month (60-55=5). AT&T will only give you 200 text messages for $5/month, so if you spend more than $5/month on text messages (I don’t) then you can add that amount to your iPhone premium.
So to summarize, here is how much MORE you are paying to have an iPhone on AT&T as compared to an Android phone on T-Mobile depending on how many text messages you send in a month
- $15 for up to 200 text messages per month
- $25 for up to 1500 text messages per month
- $30 for unlimited text messages per month
Above all else I think not having to sign a contract with T-Mobile to start service is PRICELESS. It is a statement by T-Mobile that says to me “We keep customers by competing and having the best product, not by locking people into long contracts.” If their service sucks then I have the option to leave (in doing so I would have to enslave myself to another carrier for 2 years but that is another blog post…).
In case you hadn’t noticed, I am salivating at the thought at leaving AT&T. I love my iPhone but I am not sure it is worth $15/month more than an Android phone and I won’t be holding my breath for a 3G capable iPhone on T-Mobile.
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