AT&T increased its handset upgrade fee to $36 yesterday, reports BGR, doubling the amount from its previous $18 fee. Perhaps they aren’t making enough money on text messaging, $20 tethering fees, or absurdly priced data plans…
Or perhaps they are punishing their customers for the $4 billion hit they took on their failed T-Mobile merger. Because punishing your customers is always a great move. Yeah. AT&T offers the following official explanation:
Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased and is reflected in our new upgrade fee. This fee isn’t unique to AT&T and this is the first time we’re changing it in nearly 10 years.
Sure. Because AT&T certainly must be losing money on their $10 per gigabyte data plans, charging extra just for the ability to tether, and charging double for their text messages (messages are charged to both the sender and the receiver).
In the end, it’s really just another way for AT&T to take another $18 from you without having to do anything to earn it. I guess bullying holders of unlimited data plans just wasn’t evil enough – they had to take it to the next level.
