Upgrade frustrations

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@mfried21 wrote:
After being with AT&T for almost 20 years, I now find that I am forced into their 'Next' plan if I want to upgrade a device. Instead of paying a nominal fee and an upgrade charge, you now must either pay a monthly installment, or lose your $25 per line discount. So, by signing a 2 year contract, I will have to pay $1200 more over the next two years for my Family Share Plan (that was just started 2 months ago). This is not the way to treat loyal customers. And, in the case of the iPhone 5c, you must pay $18.75 per month for newly outdated technology. I spent an hour today with Customer service, but there is no getting around the new rules.

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When you switched from your Family Talk plan to the new Mobile Share Value Plan you got a discount for being out of contract.  Your old Family Talk plan did not offer such a discount, so if you were out of contract, you were still paying AT&T back for the subsidy on your phone, it was computed right into your monthly installment.  It is still computed right into your monthly plan on the Mobile Share plans, but when you are out of contract, they give you a discount to compensate for it.  For the last 20 years, you have been paying that extra $25/month for each phone after your contract has ended, and now with the new Mobile Share plans you don't. 

You aren't being forced into using NEXT, you can still choose to buy contract subsidized phones, and in return, pay AT&T the full price for your service, just like you used to do on your old Family Talk plan you have before.  If you want to continue to receive the $25/month discount for each line, you just con't sign a new service contract.  You can continue to use yor existing phones, or you can buy your phones from any other source, as long as it is compatible with the AT&T network, and it isn't contract subsidized.

If you sit down and compute the numbers, you may find that purchasing a new phone at full price (either purchasing it outright, or using NEXT) and keeping your monthly service discount comes to within a few dollars a month of what you used to pay on your old Family Talk plan that you had for years.  If you take into account the cost of the phone, the activation fees, the discounts, everything for a 2 year period, then compare to your old Family Talk fees, plus the const of the phoens, activation fees, discounts, everything for a 2 year contract they will be about the same.  WHen I sat down and compared the numbers for my wife & I, I think we are paying an additional $4.25 a month now, but we share over 10GB of data between the two phones, and we have additional features we didn't have before.

You are correct though, that it is not right for AT&T to give discounts to loyal customers when they have fulfilled their contract obligations.

I am running into the same issues... now they just hung up on me!....

Time to move on .... After 8 years!

They say thay we are 99% connected and yet they hang up on their cutomers.