Newsletter
AT&T has never been a customer favorite when it comes to fees and it looks like that will continue with some news today. It seems that some sources close to AT&T are saying that both activation and upgrade fees will be increasing very soon for AT&T customers. This even includes AT&T Next and Bring-Your-Own-Device customers.
According to the sources, customers who sign up for one-year or two-year contracts on AT&T will now be paying $45 activation fees. This is increased from the current activation fee of $40, making AT&T the mobile carrier with the highest activation fee in the industry. AT&T apparently didn’t stop there, the carrier will also be slamming their Next customers with a $15 activation fee beginning August 1. This is a big knock for Next customers as it was completely free before, AT&T even marketed Next as being $0 out of pocket at the initial time of purchase. But wait, there’s more! The same new $15 activation fee that was added for Next customers is also being added for customers who want to take advantage of AT&Ts Bring-Your-Own-Device program. This allowed customers to quite literally bring in their own phone and get a data plan with it as opposed to purchasing a totally new phone. Now when customers do this they will be pegged with a $15 activation fee that did not exist before.
If you became or will become an AT&T Next customer before August 1, AT&T will not charge you the $15 activation fee on your next upgrade, but after that you may have to pay it. The sources say that AT&T may not be so generous as to waive the new upgrade fee after that. So essentially, your first upgrade fee will be waived if you become a Next customer before August 1, but after that, you can pretty much count on having to pay that $15 upgrade fee. AT&T is certainly going to be recieving some flak for this move to increase upgrade and activation fees to new heights. Because of this, it will be interesting to see whether or not AT&T decides to keep these new and heightened fees after they hear the public response.