Carriers' Double-Data Deals A Steal For SMBsCarriers' Double-Data Deals A Steal For SMBs

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A modicum of customer-benefiting competition has peered out from behind a rock in the mobile space of late. This week saw three of the nation's top four carriers introduce double-data promotions in tit-for-tat moves with as much as 100GB of access to LTE 4G in the offering. The plans are available to consumers and small business customers. Any organization or family with multiple smartphones or tablets would do well to take advantage of the promotions while they're still around.

AT&T kicked things off on Sunday when it announced a double-data promotion for its Mobile Share Value plans. The amount of shared data available to two or more lines now stretches from 30GB per month to 100GB per month. The new 30GB plan has a base cost of $130 per month and includes unlimited voice minutes and messaging. Customers must only add per-device access charges, which are $15 for each smartphone and $10 for each tablet (with an AT&T Next plan). The total for two smartphones on the 30GB plan adds up to $160 per month. Consumers can add up to 10 lines, while businesses can add up to 25 per account. The monthly access charge for the 100GB plan costs a whopping $375 per month.

AT&T's double-data promotion is available to new and existing customers who sign up by October 31. Customers will be able to keep the double-data allotments for as long as they want. The one caveat is that customers who make changes to their plan after the promotion expires will have to select from whatever plans AT&T is offering at that time.

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Sprint reacted to AT&T's promotion several days later and upped the ante by doubling AT&T's offering. Sprint has two separate Share Plans, one for consumers and one for businesses. Sprint's consumer customers can sign up for 60GB per month for two lines for the same $130 per month that AT&T is charging. Sprint is also offering 80GB for $150 per month or 120GB for $225 per month. Sprint is waiving monthly handset access charges (similar to the $15 charge from AT&T) through 2015. In other words, two lines on Sprint's Family Share plan can get 60GB for $130 per month, while two lines on AT&T's Mobile Share Value plan can get 30GB for $160 per month. Sprint's offer clearly undercuts AT&T's.

Sprint's offering to business customers is slightly different. The Sprint Business Plan offers 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, or 200GB for $135, $200, $270, or $330, respectively. All of Sprint's plans include unlimited voice minutes and messaging. Like AT&T's promo, Sprint's is available to new and existing customers as long as they sign up by October 31.

Verizon followed Sprint's announcement within hours. Its double-data promotion more closely matches that of AT&T's. Subscribers to Verizon's More Everything plan can jump from 12GB per month to 15GB per month for the same $110 monthly fee. The rest of Verizon's data allowances doubled. The $130 16GB plan now includes 30GB; the $150 20GB plan now includes 40GB; the $225 30GB plan now includes 60GB; the $300 40GB plan now includes 80GB; and the $375 50-GB plan now includes 100GB of monthly data. Verizon's plans also include unlimited voice minutes and messaging and must be acted upon by October 31.

Curious to know what you can do with all this data? AT&T offered a few suggestions. For example, 30GB of data will let people surf the Web for 600 hours. (FYI, there are only 720 hours each month.) The 60GB plan will let customers stream HD video for 80 hours or upload 2,000 photos. For the business minded, the 100GB plan will let you send 3,333 emails with attachments each month. Can you punch out 111 emails on your smartphone/tablet every day for an entire month?

Bottom line: these are great deals and consumers and small businesses alike should sign up while they're available.

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