AT&T To Combat Verizon With New Texting Plans? | Techland

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If rumor is right, it looks like AT&T is going to start their attack plan to beat the Verizon iPhone. A source has leaked to Gear Live a Best Buy company memo that says that AT&T will be changing text messaging plans to $10 for 1000 messages and $20 for unlimited texting. Each additional message will remain $.10. It says that new plans won’t be offered until January 23, and those who have the old plans – $5 for 200 and $15 for 1500 – can chose to keep them if they like. (Right now, Verizon’s plans are $5 for 250 messages, $10 for 500 out of network messages and $20 for unlimited messaging. Each additional message over your limit is $.10)

Another memo, this time a training document also posted by Gear Live, shows that Best Buy will not be carrying the Verizon iPhone 4 at launch and is encouraging employees to try and get customers to stick with AT&T by arguing that the Verizon iPhone 4 is going to slowly move at 3G speeds, and new customers won’t be able to trade in for a 4G capable phone until 2012. Even though AT&T also uses the 3G network, their GSM is faster than Verizon’s CDMA.

Our verdict: Weigh all the information and decide for yourself.

More on TIME.com:

The White iPhone 4 May Be Available By End of February

Mac, iPhone And iPad Sales Fuel Apple’s Record-Breaking Quarter

Just Got A New Verizon Phone? Get $200 Towards The iPhone (There’s A Catch)

http://crichton007.wordpress.com crichton007

And this is more attractive than Verizon… how? Now that things are even in terms of hardware (and network by next year) AT&T will be forced to compete on quality which is not something they have done so far.
Kelley K.

I am going to take a moment and be a totally chauvanistic girl pig and say: I will stay with Verizon as long as I live here. The Verizon guy I saw at the Mall store the other day had me losing my concentration. I will pay a little extra for him to service my phone. tyvm. OK now I’m done.
http://www.aamoth.com/ Doug Aamoth

Kelley K. wins comment of the day.

AT&T, are you paying attention? Quit focusing on network upgrades and hire better looking retail employees instead.
Nochecazador

To bad the text plan is not the elephant in the room. You still need a plan with Internet access for the iPhone. That’s a separate charge from a text plan. Nice try AT&T, but it’s a whole lot of smoke and mirrors.
pks29733steel

Regardless of what ‘text plans’ they offer, they are useless if your ‘I-Idiot Phone’ doens’t have a signal!! I could have 20,000 minutes and unlimited texts but if my ‘crApple’ phone dosen’t have a signal (I got the ‘rubber band’ around the case, which ruins the design) plans even with the most minutes, web access and texting are USELESS.