In a move that some consumers may not like, AT&T is raising the fee to upgrade from a previous device today.
The upgrade fee for the past decade has been a nice, cheap $18. The new upgrade fee hitting today sees it raised to $36. Granted, phones cost a lot less a decade ago and people weren’t upgrading them every two years like they are now.
Android Central confirmed the upgrade fee with a statement from an AT&T spokesperson saying that the cost of phones led them to increasing the fee:
Wireless devices today are more sophisticated than ever before. And because of that, the costs associated with upgrading to a new device have increased and is reflected in our new upgrade fee. This fee isn’t unique to AT&T and this is the first time we’re changing it in nearly 10 years.
We reported last week that wireless carriers are using all kinds of tactics to make a bit of extra money now that we’ve learned that phone subsidies, especially Apple’s on the iPhone 4S, is killing their bottom line.
With this news and the fact that they are throttling unlimited data users into changing their data plan, it seems that AT&T is doing everything it can to offset the costs of smartphone subsidies.