On the much older (possibly grandfathered) Falmily Talk (shared minutes) plans, you paid a set fee for your shared minutes and each smartphone then has it's own data plan. With those plans you paid the same (higher) rate whether you were under contract or not. About a couple years ago, AT&T stopped offering those plans and introduced the Mobile Share plans, where all phones have "unlimited talk & text" and then all smartphones use data from a single "shared" data pool. With these plans, once again, you paid the same rate for your bill whether you were under a contract subsidy or not. Now, a little over a year ago, AT&T started offering the Mobile Share Value Plans, where you get a discount on your talk & text portion of your phone bill if you are not under a contract subsidy (and as a promotion, many users under contract when the plans were announced could also get that discount until they signed a new service contract).
Many people witched to the Mobile Share Value plans when they came out and took advanttage of that out of contract discount, even if they were inder contract. I know I did, and I saved about $50/month for our account with 2 iPhones. For many people, the switch from Family Talk to Mobile Share plans meant that their bills would not change at all, or would only change very little. For me, that change would have meant that my bill would have gone up about $2.50/month. Now when the Mobile Share Value Plans came along, that promotional discount was enticing, so I sat down and did the math. How much would is cost me if I switched to the new plan and got a new phone under contract, how much would it cost me if I switched to the new plan and got a new phone using NEXT, and how much wold it cost me if I kept my old plan. To get the most accurate comparison, I used the total cost over 2 years, and that's where I came out to the new Mobile Share Value Plan and NEXT agreement costing me about $60 more over the full 2 years, or about $2.50/month over my old Family Talk plan. For that extra little cost, I did get several benefits though. I can now use the Mobile Hotspot feature of my phone without any additional fees (as long as I don't go over my data limit), and my wife no longer got her data speeds throttled when she exceeded 5GB usage in a single month (She was averaging about 6.5GB where I was averaging closer to 2.5GB).
In the end, it was such a small amount, and I have to admit that ti was nice to spread that cost of the 128GB iPhone 6 across the 24 month NEXT term rather than having to give AT&T close to $500 for each of the 128GB phones we got. When you include the total costs (Phone, service, taxes, fees, etc.) the cost difference may be much smaller than you really think. The other nice thing is that as long as you haven't switched away from your old Family Talk plan, you can still keep it (for now at least), so if you think it's that much better, then don't switch away from it.
Many people witched to the Mobile Share Value plans when they came out and took advanttage of that out of contract discount, even if they were inder contract. I know I did, and I saved about $50/month for our account with 2 iPhones. For many people, the switch from Family Talk to Mobile Share plans meant that their bills would not change at all, or would only change very little. For me, that change would have meant that my bill would have gone up about $2.50/month. Now when the Mobile Share Value Plans came along, that promotional discount was enticing, so I sat down and did the math. How much would is cost me if I switched to the new plan and got a new phone under contract, how much would it cost me if I switched to the new plan and got a new phone using NEXT, and how much wold it cost me if I kept my old plan. To get the most accurate comparison, I used the total cost over 2 years, and that's where I came out to the new Mobile Share Value Plan and NEXT agreement costing me about $60 more over the full 2 years, or about $2.50/month over my old Family Talk plan. For that extra little cost, I did get several benefits though. I can now use the Mobile Hotspot feature of my phone without any additional fees (as long as I don't go over my data limit), and my wife no longer got her data speeds throttled when she exceeded 5GB usage in a single month (She was averaging about 6.5GB where I was averaging closer to 2.5GB).
In the end, it was such a small amount, and I have to admit that ti was nice to spread that cost of the 128GB iPhone 6 across the 24 month NEXT term rather than having to give AT&T close to $500 for each of the 128GB phones we got. When you include the total costs (Phone, service, taxes, fees, etc.) the cost difference may be much smaller than you really think. The other nice thing is that as long as you haven't switched away from your old Family Talk plan, you can still keep it (for now at least), so if you think it's that much better, then don't switch away from it.