AT&T says it will now offer a prepaid 5G data-only plan with up to 100GB of data for $55 per month — a big upgrade from its previous offering of 40GB for $75. The new pricing extends to Cricket Wireless customers as well as AT&T’s direct prepaid subscribers. These plans allow customers to buy data for their tablet or mobile hotspot separate from their voice plan.
That 100GB is a lot of data at a lower price than the other major carriers are offering; currently, T-Mobile has a prepaid data-only plan of 50GB for $50 and Verizon has a 30GB plan for $65 per month. It may be no coincidence that Verizon and T-Mobile are also eager to expand their own 5G and LTE-based fixed home wireless products, but AT&T may have a little more room to be aggressive with its mobile hotspot offerings while it remains committed to pushing its fiber home internet service.
The company says that current Cricket customers already enrolled in the 100GB data-only plan — previously $90 per month — will see the new price reflected on their next bill. Likewise, existing AT&T customers will get a data bump and a price decrease automatically. New customers can sign up for the plans starting today.
Correction: A previous version of this article based on communication from an AT&T representative said that Cricket Wireless subscribers would not be able to use 5G hotspot data. That is not the case: both AT&T prepaid and Cricket customers can access the 5G network as part of the plan.