T-Mobile vs. AT&T: Which rollover data plan is right for you?
Phones
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T-Mobile and AT&T have both announced programs that allow customers to roll over unused data from one month to the next.
This is great news, but not everyone is eligible to take advantage of this.
T-Mobile's data stash program is only to Simple Choice customers with a plan of 3 gigabytes or more of 4G LTE data.
AT&T's rollover program looks more appealing initially because there's no minimum amount of data required.
You simply need an AT&T Mobile Share Value plan which range from as little as 300 megabytes a month all the way to 100 gigs.
Now, before we jump right in, it's always smart to read the fine print.
T-Mobile's data stash program isn't available for the $50 a month, one gigabyte Simple Choice Plan, or the carrier's cheaper Simple Starter Plan.
Data Stash customers will also get 10 gigabytes of free data, however, rollover won't actually begin, until the entire 10 gigabytes is used up.
And while there is no limit to how much data you can collect,.
The data will expire after one year.
As for AT&T, data is only good for a single billing cycle meaning leftover data from January can be used in February but not March.
You would also expect the data that is being rolled over would be consumed first before any new data, but that's not the case.
As noted on AT&T's website, rollover data is always consumed last after your other data allowances.
So let's break it down for both carriers.
If you have 5 gigs of data each month and use only two in January, both T-Mobile and AT&T customers would add the remaining three gigs they didn't use in January to their normal five gig plan.
Giving them a total of eight gigs of data used in February.
Not too bad, right?
Well this is where the plans differ.
As an AT&T subscriber, if you were to use only four gigs in February of the eight you stored up, only one gig would roll over to March.
Which, when you add that to your normal five gig plan, will give you a total of six giga bytes for the month.
Because the three gigs of data you carried over from January wasn't used in February, it simply disappears from your account.
Leaving you with that one extra gig of data for March.
As a T Mobile subscriber, if you were to use only four gigs in February of the eight you had in your data stash.
You would be left with four gigs of data, all of which would roll over to March, giving you a total of nine gigs of data.
Both of these rollover plans are good for consumers, but I personally favor T-Mobile because they are giving you that extra ten gigabytes of data for free.
Your data stash also won't expire for an entire year, whereas on AT&T, your extra data is only carried over for the next month.
I also like that T-Mobile doesn't charge overages, and instead will reduce your data speed if you exceed your usage, unlike AT&T.
Either way, it's a win-win and a big step forward for the wireless industry.
For more information, be sure to check out my full article over at howto.cnet.com.
I'm Dan [INAUDIBLE] for CNet.
Thanks for watching.
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