AT&T Unlimited Premium Replaces Unlimited Elite for Consumers: Now With 50GB Mobile Hotspot Data

AT&T has quietly made some small adjustments to their consumer postpaid smartphone plans - replacing their top end Unlimited Elite plan with Unlimited Premium. 

AT&T Unlimited Premium Video

Unlimited Premium Plan Differences

The Unlimited Elite Plan was AT&T's top-tier consumer postpaid plan for smartphones, starting at $85/line for a single line of service. 

The plan included unlimited high speed priority on device data not subject to network management, 40GB of high speed mobile hotspot use, 4K video streaming, plan use in Canada/Mexico, and included HBO Max streaming service. 

This plan is now retired, and current customers are grandfathered in. 

The new Unlimited Premium plan that replaces Unlimited Elite is essentially the same, but with just these small changes:

• High speed mobile hotspot is increased to 50GB from 40GB. After the cap is reached, hotspot speeds are slowed down to an incredibly un-useful 128 kbps. This matches Verizon's high speed mobile hotspot cap, except Verizon's hotspot throttling is 600 kbps when on LTE/5G Nationwide or 3 Mbps when on 5G UW.
• HBO Max is no longer included, presumably because HBO is no longer owned by AT&T and the HBO streaming service will soon be merged in with the Discovery+ App. This makes AT&T the only carrier to not offer a free streaming service with their premium level smartphone plan. 

Pricing of Unlimited Premium remains the same as Unlimited Elite, with a single line of service at $85/month. None of the other AT&T consumer smartphone plans are being changed. 

AT&T Unlimited Elite for Business

If you are considering a plan on AT&T, and are eligible for a business account, you might consider the Business Unlimited Elite plan. The Business version of this plan is also $85, has no network management, and 4K UHD - but has the added benefit of 100GB of data available for mobile hotspot use at high speed.

Concluding Thoughts

While this plan change involves a new plan name, the changes are actually relatively small. 

Consumers who had Unlimited Elite can keep their plan if they prefer the HBO Max add-on, at least for now - it's unknown what will happen once there is no longer an HBO Max dedicated service. However, if more hotspot data is appealing - it should be a simple to contact AT&T at any time to switch from Elite to Premium. 

It's great to see the carriers embracing premium plans without network management thresholds, a decent amount of mobile hotspot data, and 4K video streaming.

It is also great to see the price staying constant - especially as this month AT&T is rolling out $6-12 per month increases on legacy plans (our MIAs can access some further analysis below). 

Both AT&T's Consumer and Business top tier plans remain Top Pick Data Plans here at the Mobile Internet Resource Center. 

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