July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

AT&T seems to be flipping the switch on its FaceTime plans a few weeks early.

Earlier this month the company announced that it was loosening its FaceTime restrictions to allow tiered data customers with LTE devices to use the app.

But while AT&T estimated that the switch wouldn’t happen for at least another six weeks, some tired data customers are already reporting being able to make FaceTime calls via the company’s cellular network.

The bigger surprise is that some of these customers have grandfathered unlimited plans, which should prevent from using FaceTime on their devices.

That makes the switch sound less intentional and more like a big fat accident. We’ve reached out to AT&T to see which is the case, and will update this story when the company responds.

Intentional or not, we do know that any loosening of AT&T’s FaceTime restrictions will be greeted with applause by consumer advocacy groups, which have been pressuring AT&T in recent months to change its stance on the video chat app. AT&T customers will also be happy to hear that the carrier finally allowing them to use an app that should have been open from the very beginning.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

As promised, AT&T has laid out its shared data plans today, which it’s calling “Mobile Share.” Just like Verizon’s “Share Everything” plans announced last month, the Mobile Share plans will allow AT&T customers to share a single pool of data across 10 mobile devices when they launch in August.

Simplicity is the key to these plans: They all come with unlimited voice minutes and messaging, and it’s not too tough to figure out how much a new device will cost you monthly. Forget about trying to juggle multiple mysterious device contracts.

The base Mobile Share plan starts at $40 a month for 1 gigabyte of data, plus $45 for each smartphone. Adding a tablet will run you $10 a month, while adding a laptop or hotspot will cost $20. And if you absolutely need a feature phone, it’ll cost just $30 a month. Overage fees are just $15 per additional gigabyte of data.

AT&T’s shared data plans go all the way up to $200 a month for 20GB of data (double Verizon’s largest shared plan), and adding a smartphone gets cheaper the more base data you purchase (check out the pricing table below).

What’s clearly different about AT&T’s shared data plans is that they aren’t being forced on you, instead they’ll sit alongside AT&T’s existing plans for new customers. Verizon said that it will eventually remove its prior plans and force new customers to use its shared plans (though currently, new customers can still sign up for non-shared individual plans).

Photo: Matt Hollingsworth/Flickr