AT&T has expanded its 2026 price increases to another group of customers on retired wireless plans. Accounts that activated or moved to certain affected plans from July 24 through November 1, 2025, and avoided the first round of increases in April, began seeing higher charges on their August bills.
The change reaches several generations of AT&T plans, but it does not add the same amount to every account. Depending on the plan, the increase can be $5 per line, $5 or $10 per account, or as much as $20 per account. Some unlimited-plan customers receive additional hotspot data in exchange. Mobile Share customers do not appear to get an equivalent data increase.
Three sets of old plans have different increases
Under AT&T’s support notice for retired Unlimited Your Way plans, the monthly charge rises by $5 for each smartphone line. The affected lineup includes Unlimited Starter SL, Unlimited Extra EL and Unlimited Premium PL, along with earlier versions of Unlimited Starter, Extra and Premium.
AT&T says each affected line receives another 10GB of monthly high-speed hotspot data. That makes the change more than a straight price increase, but the extra allowance has value only for customers who tether other devices and were close to their previous hotspot limit. A family with four affected smartphone lines pays another $20 per month, or $240 over a full year, whether it uses that additional data or not.
A separate group of retired unlimited plans follows different math. AT&T says single-line accounts pay $10 more each month, while accounts with two or more lines pay an additional $20 per month at the account level. Those plans receive 20GB of additional monthly hotspot data. The affected names include Unlimited Plus, Unlimited Choice and Unlimited Choice II; their Enhanced versions; Unlimited &More and Unlimited &More Premium; and the Unlimited Double Play plan.
Customers on retired Mobile Share plans face smaller but still meaningful account-level increases. According to AT&T’s Mobile Share notice, plans containing less than 6GB of data rise by $5 per month, while plans with 6GB or more rise by $10. AT&T identifies Mobile Share Value, Mobile Share Value Double Data, Mobile Share Plus and Mobile Share Advantage as affected families.
The activation window is important. Plans active before July 24, 2025, generally received the corresponding increase in April. The August round covers accounts that joined or moved to an affected plan between July 24 and November 1, 2025, provided the increase was not already applied. That means some customers are receiving a legacy-plan surcharge less than a year after selecting a plan that AT&T subsequently retired.
Why the increase arrived in two stages
AT&T told CNET that customers in the later activation window were excluded from April’s pricing change because they had been on their plans for less than nine months. The carrier’s support pages describe the increases as necessary to continue providing network service, products and customer support.
That explanation clarifies the timing, but it does not make the higher price optional. Customers may retain their retired plans and absorb the increase, or move to something currently offered. AT&T warns separately that once a customer leaves a retired plan, it generally cannot be restored. Any comparison therefore needs to account for features that may disappear in a switch, not just the advertised monthly rate.
The added hotspot data also complicates a simple old-versus-new price comparison. Someone who regularly uses tethering may find the larger allowance useful. A customer who never activates a hotspot is effectively paying more for an unwanted benefit. Mobile Share subscribers have another consideration: their shared data structure can differ substantially from the unlimited plans AT&T now emphasizes.
What affected customers should check
AT&T directs customers to the “News you can use” area of bills covering dates from June 22 through August 1 to find a monthly rate-plan change notice. The most reliable calculation is to compare the new recurring plan charge with the previous bill, then multiply the difference by 12.
Before changing plans, customers should record each line’s current price, hotspot allowance, roaming features, discounts and any promotional bill credits. Device installments and credits deserve particular attention because leaving AT&T can make the remaining device balance due and may end future credits. Changing only the rate plan is different from canceling service, but customers should still confirm how every discount will carry over.
The decision is clearest when the annual increase exceeds the value of the old plan’s distinctive benefits. For affected accounts, the immediate question is no longer whether the August increase applies, but whether the retired plan still earns its higher price once every line, discount and hotspot allowance is counted.