T AT&T Inc

By Thomas Gryta 

AT&T Inc. is opening up its unlimited wireless data plans to all potential customers, not just those who buy its television service, days after rival Verizon Communications Inc. began offering unlimited plans for the first time since 2011.

Last year, AT&T started offering unlimited data plans, but only to customers who also pay for one of its television services, DirecTV or U-verse, in a bid to retain wireless customers and attract new video households. Smaller rivals T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. have been taking market share from the two biggest U.S. carriers by pushing lower prices and plans without data caps.

AT&T's move leaves all four national wireless carriers offering the same plan and leaving price and network claims as the major differences.

AT&T's said it would still sell the unlimited plan for $100 a month for a single phone. That compares with $80 a month at Verizon and $60 at Sprint. T-Mobile sells unlimited data for $70 for one line, including taxes and fees. AT&T is also selling four lines for $180 a month, the same as Verizon.

The shifts at Verizon and AT&T come after years of trying to get customers to pay for data based on usage. The companies argued that the surging growth in data traffic required expensive network upgrades, and unlimited plans prevented carriers from collecting more money as usage rose.

Like its rivals, AT&T says it may curb speeds for heaviest data users when there is network congestion. AT&T could impose limits after a subscriber uses more than 22 gigabytes of data in a billing cycle, the same level as Verizon. Sprint could limit speeds after 23 gigabytes; T-Mobile may after 28 gigabytes.

In 2010, AT&T was the first major U.S. carrier to stop offering unlimited data to new customers, an effort to limit congestion on its network and to profit from rising data use. Verizon followed the next year.

T-Mobile and Sprint continued to offer such plans, and T-Mobile recently made them the only plans its sells. Until recently, both companies only included lower-quality video in their unlimited plans unless users paid extra fees.

To match Verizon's offer, T-Mobile and Sprint changed their plans this week to include high-definition video as well as 10 gigabytes of 4G data when a customer users their phone as a Wi-Fi hot spot. AT&T doesn't allow tethering on its unlimited plan.

AT&T lost 67,000 postpaid phone customers, the most lucrative type of wireless subscriber, during the fourth quarter, while Verizon added 167,000. Meanwhile, T-Mobile added 933,000 and Sprint added 368,000 in the same period.

Write to Thomas Gryta at thomas.gryta@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 16, 2017 17:18 ET (22:18 GMT)

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