T-Mobile USA is the small fry among the big American phone carriers, but its moves continue to influence its competitors. Just a few weeks after T-Mobile said it would allow phone customers to roll over their unused data month after month, AT&T said it would provide a similar offering.
AT&T, the second-largest American carrier after Verizon Wireless, said on Wednesday that customers who have subscribed to its shared data plans would be able to roll over unused data from month to month. That is reminiscent of older phone plans that allowed customers to roll over unused voice minutes
For example, if a customer has a 20-gigabyte plan and used only 10 gigabytes one month, the next month the customer would have 30 gigabytes to use. The data can be shared among multiple devices.
AT&T’s plan does differ slightly from T-Mobile’s. AT&T will allow unused data to be carried over for only one month — if the extra gigabytes aren’t used, they’re lost. T-Mobile allows the rolled-over data to be stashed for up to a year.
Still, rollover data means AT&T customers can spend less time counting their precious megabytes to ensure they are using as much as they pay for. But the new option only adds to the myriad of different offerings available in the hypercompetitive wireless market, which is becoming harder to follow every week.
“It’s all good for consumers,” said Jan Dawson, an independent telecom analyst, “though it’s now yet another wrinkle in the plans that adds complexity to comparisons.”