AT&T To Launch New Text Plans Next Week?

The gents over at GearLive just finagled this screenshot out of a Best Buy employee, purportedly detailing a new text messaging plan AT&T plans to launch next week.

Under the terms of the new plans, anybody subscribing after January 23rd will have two choices:

  • $10 a month for 1000 texts, with an overage fee of 10 cents per message
  • $20 a month for unlimited texts

As is par for the course, the arrival of new plans means some of the old plans are going away. Also beginning January 23rd, AT&T will no longer offer the $15/1500 Texts or $5/200 Texts plans. If you’ve already got either plan in your contract, however, you’re all set — hurray for contract grandfathering!

Why the change? Who knows! It’s presumably timed around the launch of the Verizon iPhone, but the new plans aren’t really… better. $10 for 1000 texts still breaks down to the same $1 per 100 rate as the $15 for 1500 plan, and the $20/Unlimited plan is unchanged. Lower text allotments at the same price-per-text just means folks will start rackin’ up overages faster, you know?