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AT&T GoPhone customers will now get 33 percent more high-speed data included in their prepaid wireless phone accounts at no extra charge if they use autopay to pay for their service each month.
The offer will take effect on Nov. 11 for customers who use AT&T’s $60 or $45 monthly prepaid GoPhone plans and who sign up for autopay, the company said in a Nov. 6 announcement. Using the autopay option, customers also receive a $5-per-month discount on their prepaid phone plans, bringing the monthly rate to $55 and $40.
Under the new offer, autopay customers who previously received 6GB of high-speed data with their $60 phone plans ($55 with autopay) will now receive 8GB starting Nov. 11, while customers who previously received 3GB of data on the $45 ($40 with autopay) monthly plans will receive 4GB of data. The additional included data will be provided automatically for customers using the autopay option, according to the company.
In addition, AT&T is also offering GoPhone prepaid customers a free ZTE Maven 2 phone when they open a new line of service starting at $30 a month through Dec. 31, or an LG Phoenix 2 phone for $49.99, a $20 discount from its regular price of $69.99, through Dec. 31. Both handsets are 4G LTE smartphones.
All AT&T GoPhone plans include unlimited talk and text in the United States and unlimited messaging to Mexico, Canada and some 100 other countries. Users of the $60 monthly prepaid plan ($55 with autopay) also get unlimited talk and text from the U.S. to Mexico and Canada as well as limited talk, text and data usage while traveling in Mexico and Canada.
The $60 and $45 GoPhone monthly plans also include the rollover of unused data from the previous month into a customer’s upcoming month allotment.
In August, AT&T unveiled a new multiline discount program for GoPhone users that provides up to $150 a month in savings for businesses with up to 10 lines and $50 a month in savings for families with up to five GoPhone lines of service.
The multiline discounts for 4G LTE GoPhone prepaid, no-contract wireless services were announced Aug. 12 by AT&T as a way for subscribers to save money on multiple GoPhone lines, just as the company offers discounts for its postpaid and contract customers.
The monthly service discounts began in August and offer $5 off the second line, $10 off the third line, $15 off the fourth line and $20 off the fifth line, for a total of $50 in discounts for family users. Business customers get the same discounts, plus a $20-a-month discount on each of the sixth through tenth lines, for a total savings of $150 a month.
The discounts are only available for AT&T’s $45 high-speed monthly GoPhone data plan or the $60 monthly GoPhone prepaid service plan. Both plans include unlimited talk and texting. Data speed after the monthly limits are reached is provided at 128K bps. Both plans offer the $5 monthly discount for autopay users and rollover data.
AT&T has been expanding its GoPhone lineup in recent months. In May, the $100 LG Phoenix 2 smartphone was added, according to a recent eWEEKstory, giving customers another option for a no-contract smartphone on the company’s 4G LTE network. The LG Phoenix 2 handset features a 5-inch HD touch-screen display (1,280-by-720 resolution), a 1.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor (model MSM8909), 1.5GB of memory, 16GB of on-board storage and a microSD card slot that accepts storage cards up to 32GB.
The smartphone also includes an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera with 4X digital zoom, LED flash, and video recording and playback capabilities at 720p at 30 frames per second. Also featured is a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with 4X digital zoom and LED flash, plus burst shot capabilities, as well as gesture shot, which allows users to employ a hand gesture to trigger the shutter. A “Cheese” shutter capability allows users to trigger the shutter using a voice command.
The LG Phoenix 2 runs on the Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system and has a 2,125mAh removable battery. It also features a softly curved design and rear-located control keys for power, volume and shutter operations. The Phoenix 2 is a GSM quad-band world phone that also includes 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Near Field Communication (NFC) and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity, as well as mobile hotspot capabilities to connect up to eight devices.