Top Spectrum and AT&T Plans Compared

Understanding what plan is right for you is difficult. Service plans are complicated, bills can be tough to make sense of, and sometimes, it feels easier to just keep your wireless account out of sight & out of mind rather than really digging into the finer details. Navi actually ran a poll and found that many wireless customers would rather do their taxes than shop for a new wireless plan.
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Doing your own research to try and discover all the options, understand the terminology - it takes a lot of your precious time, time you’d rather spend doing other stuff.

Spectrum and AT&T offer very different wireless service plans, and doing the work of understanding what you really want and need out of your service plan will allow you to intelligently choose between their value propositions. Some people are in the top echelon of data and hotspot users and can’t accept anything less than unlimited premium data all the time and a staggering number of hotspot gigabytes, which they’ll ultimately end up burning through by streaming, gaming, or working on the go frequently. Others who don't use much data at all and just need a plan that will allow them to stay connected in the rare moments they’re off of WiFi.

Of course.  No matter what type of plan might be right for you, how much it costs is incredibly important. But plan pricing is more complicated than it may seem at first glance.

Here are some things to consider:

Does a plan get more affordable than others as you add more lines? AT&T’s multi-line plan pricing (across all its plans) drops by $5-10 per month for each additional line up to 5 lines. So, if you are just one person subscribing to AT&T’s Unlimited Starter plan, you will pay $65 monthly. But, if you are a family of five, that same AT&T plan will cost you $30 per line or $150 monthly. On the other hand, Spectrum’s unlimited plans are a flat rate for each line ($30/line for Unlimited, $40/line for Unlimited Plus). So, AT&T’s plans are significantly more expensive for single-line users, but if you have an account with more than a few lines, the total price you’ll pay on either carrier will start to converge.

Does the plan’s stated price include taxes and fees? AT&T plans do not include taxes and fees in their advertised price, but Spectrum plans do. Given that those typically end up being up to 10-12% extra on top of the advertised price of the plan, the inclusion of taxes and fees in the plan price can save you big in the long run.

Does subscribing to a certain plan allow you to take advantage of lucrative smartphone promotions? Some plans, like AT&T’s Value Plus, do not allow subscribers to take advantage of lucrative smartphone discounts and promotions. Higher end plans generally do, and Spectrum allows customers on any of its plans to get any of its phone deals (but keep in mind that Spectrum’s phone deals are much less attractive than AT&T’s).

Do a plan's perks and add-ons save you money in other areas of your family budget? Neither AT&T nor Spectrum currently include many additional perks like streaming services or other subscriptions. Other carriers do offer streaming services on some of their plans, but even then, it pays to read the fine print. The offers are generally for ad-supported plans, which may be fine, but maybe not. If you are looking to consolidate your subscription services around your wireless plan, broaden your search.

When comparing AT&T and Spectrum across the board, Spectrum generally has lower per-month pricing. Remember that you have to already be a Spectrum internet customer, though! The overall point to remember here is that you need to understand plan pricing in context to get the right plan for you at the best price.

Cellular data is one of the most important aspects of choosing the right plan for you. AT&T and Spectrum offer a mix of capped, by-the-gigabyte (a form of capped data that allows you to add more GBs to your monthly bill a la carte), and unlimited data plans, providing users with many options so they can make the right plan choice for their level of consumption. Capped plans are straightforward: after you use the allotted amount of data, you can’t use any more until your billing cycle restarts or you pay a significant premium to use more data beyond your cap. Spectrum’s Unlimited data is simpler in one sense: there’s no cap on the data you use. It’s “unlimited.” Closer inspection reveals that even though AT&T and Spectrum both offer unlimited plans, not all unlimited plans are created equal. Let’s break it down:

Top of the Line unlimited plans typically offer large quantities of “premium” data. Premium data is not subject to slowdowns when the network is busy. It makes sense if you stop and consider it: customers paying top dollar for expensive, feature-packed service plans are guaranteed access to unlimited data at the fastest speeds the carrier can offer.

Conversely, cheaper unlimited plans typically offer “deprioritized” data. As the moniker suggests, plans that offer exclusively deprioritized data are subject to possible slowdowns when the network is busy. This means that if you’re a customer on a plan with deprioritized data, when you’re in a crowded place like a public transit hub or stadium, you may experience marginally slower connectivity while you’re using your device to connect to the Internet. Expensive, Top of the Line plans usually include access to unlimited premium data. Entry Level plans usually offer no premium data, meaning their customers can still consume unlimited data but are always subject to slower speeds if the network is busy. Middle of the Road plans usually offer some combination of premium and deprioritized data. Except at Spectrum.

This is important: Spectrum always reserves the right to slow its customers down when the network is busy, even on its unlimited plans that guarantee “priority” data. Don’t believe us? Check out the “Network Management” section of Spectrum’s Mobile Broadband Disclosures, where it spells out that Spectrum customers are always subject to slower speeds when the network is busy. Not sure if you need a plan with premium data or not? Start by checking your usage, which you can do by texting *3282# if you’re an AT&T customer. If you use fewer than 10GB per month and don’t often need fast data when you’re traveling in crowded places, a plan with deprioritized data might work fine for you (it would be fine for most people).

Hotspot data allows consumers to connect a computer or other WiFi-capable device to the Internet through their smartphone and their wireless carrier. Most users do not need any hotspot data, but that is changing as more and more people recognize its benefits.

Carriers offer hotspot data on their 5G networks (very fast data speeds), 4G networks (quite fast data speeds) or 3G networks (very slow data speeds).  Keep in mind that hotspot data offered over a 3G network is equivalent to “dial-up data” from the 1990s and is really not a practical option.

Carriers offering hotspot data over 5G and 4G networks always cap the amount of data a user can consume each month. Of course, Top of the Line unlimited data plans offer the largest hotspot data - typically around 50GB, which is far more than enough for the average hotspot user. Since most people don’t use hotspot data very often, it is difficult to know what, say, 50GB of hotspot data really means. Typically, 50GB of hotspot data would allow a user to surf the web from their desktop computer (through their phone) for about 100 hours. If you’re in the minority of customers who frequently use mobile hotspot data to stay connected on the go, then keep hotspot allocation in mind while you’re browsing and selecting the wireless plan that’s right for you.

If you’re a frequent hotspot user (i.e., you use it more than twice a week - which would put you in the top percentile of hotspot data consumers in the United States), consider Spectrum Mobile’s unlimited plans with caution. Spectrum unlimited plans do provide hotspot connectivity, but hotspot data gigabytes count towards your allocation of deprioritized data before you’re subject to even further slowdowns. So, if your Spectrum unlimited plan provides 5GB of hotspot data and 20GB of deprioritized data and you use that entire 5GB of hotspot, you’ll only have 15GB of cellular data left to use for your non-hotspot needs that month. That’s in contrast to AT&T, where its unlimited plans that provide hotspot capability do not count any hotspot usage towards your core cellular data allotment.

One of the most important considerations when comparing AT&T to Spectrum is one you’ve no doubt thought of already… which carrier offers better coverage in your area. Unfortunately, when comparing coverage, there isn’t a quick and easy method to getting an accurate assessment.  Network quality is very very localized.  So localized, in fact, that one side of your home could have terrific network performance and the other side of your home miserable network performance.  Coverage maps don’t help with that! We’ll unpack what really goes into “good coverage” below, but keep in mind that Spectrum Mobile is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO). It primarily leases Verizon’s network infrastructure and stipulates in its Broadband Disclosures that its (i.e, Spectrum Mobile) customers are subject to slowdowns when the network is busy.

What does that really mean? Recall our discussion of premium vs. deprioritized data above. The fact that Spectrum operates on Verizon’s network and indicates that its customers are always susceptible to slowdowns - means that Spectrum users always have deprioritized data. So, while Spectrum operates on the Verizon network, that doesn’t mean that Spectrum customers will always have the exact same network experience that Verizon customers have. That, it’s important to understand a few key things about network coverage; read on to find out more.

Great network quality and coverage consist of many factors that sum up to determine your network experience. These factors include such things as (1) your proximity to the nearest cell tower; (2) whether your carrier offers 5G technology on high band frequencies in your area; (3) the number of other customers your carrier serves in your immediate neighborhood; and (4) the materials your home is made of.  There are other factors too.  As such, measuring network quality and coverage quality is no simple task.  From a technical perspective, measuring network quality (meaning your download speed, the number of dropped calls, presence of dead zones, etc.) is a function of the following jargon:

• Signal Strength (i.e. “bars” on your screen): Is your smart phone receiving a strong signal from the nearest cell tower?  As you know, poor signal reception means poor service.
• Signal Congestion: How much cell phone traffic is there in your neighborhood?  The more people near you on your carrier's network, the worse it is for you.  You can have super signal strength but poor service, which is usually the result of excess network congestion.
• Frequency Band: Your carrier generally has 4-6 frequency bands that your phone can attach to at any time. So a nice question to know is what frequency band is your carrier putting you on most often?  Certain frequency bands are like a super highway - with very high data throughput.  Other frequency bands are more like a country road – with slower data speed but better at penetrating walls and other heavy structures.  
• Reselection: With many frequency bands available, carriers often switch you back and forth depending on a variety of factors (like network congestion).  Sometimes this is good but a lot of the time this is not good.  
• 5G: All carriers are rolling out 5G which is the latest wireless technology.  Carriers have generally integrated 5G technology onto their higher frequency bands.  But, if your phone isn’t within range of one of these higher frequency bands, you will not have access to 5G service.  

With all the above factors in mind, measuring coverage is tricky and varies from person to person and location to location.  It’s for this reason that Navi is hard at work developing a first-of-its-kind tool to let you compare coverage from different carriers where it matters most to you at the same time.  Check back at www.yournavi.com in the weeks ahead.  But until we launch this service later in 2023, here are a few tips:

• Compare services with friends and family that have different carriers.  Invite them into your house and run speed tests in different locations.
• Check out blogs and forums in your area to find out what other people are experiencing on different carriers.
• Check out carrier coverage maps (but this is only useful for trying to anticipate generally areas with poor coverage).

Peruse our plan picks below to find an AT&T or Spectrum plan that’s right for your needs. Remember that AT&T and Spectrum respectively are better fits for different types of customers, so we stopped short of providing definitive recommendations here. Remember to consider what type of wireless user you are, and use that information to help guide your decision on whether you need an AT&T or a Spectrum Mobile plan.

Some users don’t need a ton of extra features that they won’t pay for. If you’re connected to WiFi most of the time, don’t need to stay connected via mobile hotspot, and aren’t interested in things like streaming services or connectivity while traveling abroad, consider selecting one of AT&T or Spectrum’s Entry Level plans. Entry Level plans are right for subscribers who use fewer than 10GB of cellular data per month, use hotspot connectivity once a week even less than that, and aren’t interested in combining their wireless plan with additional perks or add-ons. Both Spectrum and AT&T’s Entry Level options contain exclusively deprioritized data, meaning that the small fraction of customers who would notice and take issue with the slight slowdown that happens when your data is “deprioritized” in crowded places need read no further in this category; they’re better off with a more expensive, more feature-packed option. Use the table below to compare the features of AT&T and Spectrum’s Entry Level unlimited plans and decide which one is right for you. Navi ultimately recommends Spectrum Unlimited in the matchup of Entry Level plans based on the fantastic value that plan provides for the money.

Heavy data users like streamers, hardcore business users, and gamers typically look towards the top of the wireless market for the best plans that the major carriers can offer. Navi refers to these as Top of the Line plans because they are packed with a ton of premium data, hotspot allocation, and additional features like great streaming speed and international connectivity. Spectrum Mobile has no plans that Navi ranks as Top of the Line, so if you’re looking towards the top of the market you’re best off with AT&T’s Unlimited Premium. Customers should seriously consider a Top of the Line plan if they use a ton of data - upwards of 25GB per month, use their smartphone as a mobile hotspot 3 or more times a week, and rely on their wireless plan significantly for either international connectivity or savings on subscription services that they were already purchasing outside of their wireless plan. Customers traveling abroad fewer than twice a year should consider whether extra international connectivity is worth paying more every month for, rather than purchasing it a la carte when they do go overseas. All that said, if you’re in the top echelon of wireless users and need a Top of the Line plan, consider the features of AT&T’s Unlimited Premium below and decide whether it’s right for you.

If you want to strike a balance between a competitive price and a set of features that give you a little bit more for your money, consider Spectrum and AT&T’s Middle of the Road plans. Middle of the Road plans strike a great balance between competitive pricing, useful data allocations and hotspot connectivity, and a modest number of add-on services like perks or streaming services. So if your goal is somewhere between saving money and a rich set of features, AT&T’s Unlimited Extra and Spectrum’s Unlimited Plus are both fantastic options. Spectrum and AT&T’s Middle of the Road plans are optimal for customers who consume between 10 and 25GB of data per month, use their device as a mobile hotspot between 1 and 3 times per week, and generally aren’t counting on using their device for much international connectivity beyond the occasional trip to Mexico or Canada. Think Spectrum or AT&T’s Middle of the Road plans might be right for you? Check out the feature comparison below to evaluate them for yourself and determine which one is right for your needs. Navi’s ultimate recommendation based on overall value is Spectrum Unlimited Plus.

Unlimited data plans are a staple of the wireless industry, but that doesn’t mean that capped plans have totally disappeared. Ten years ago, when distinctions like “premium” vs. “deprioritized” unlimited data did not yet exist, most plans actually had an official “cap” on your data allotment, after which you’d be cut off (or be required to pay for more data if you wanted or needed it). If you really don’t need - or want to pay for - an unlimited data plan, there are still some options on the market for capped data plans at both AT&T and Spectrum. Spectrum offers a “By the Gig” model of capped data consumption, charging a flat rate of $14 per gigabyte of data you consume. You’re free to share each gigabyte with as many lines as you have on your account, making Spectrum’s By the Gig data model particularly attractive for wireless customers that use little to no cellular data but want to have some connectivity just in case, and are willing to share a finite amount of data across all of their lines. In contrast, AT&T provides a single capped plan - the 4GB plan - that provides each line with 4GB of data.

Capped plans are typically cheaper than unlimited options for single lines, but their advantage starts to dissipate as multi-line unlimited pricing becomes more attractive. Navi recommends capped plans for users that consume between 1 and 4GB of cellular data per month, never need to use their device as a mobile hotspot, and are wholly unconcerned with getting any add-ons like streaming services or international connectivity along with their wireless plan. Compare AT&T and Spectrum’s capped data plans below to get a sense of which may be right for you. Navi’s final recommendation in this category is Spectrum’s By the Gig option, but that recommendation carries less weight if you expect you’ll be consuming more than 2-3 gigabytes of cellular data, at which point the prices start to converge.