AT&T Is Raising the Rates for Its Older Unlimited Elite Plans – CNET [CNET]

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The price of the Max-bundled plan is going up in August.

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Eli Blumenthal Senior Editor

Eli Blumenthal is a senior editor at CNET with a particular focus on covering the latest in the ever-changing worlds of telecom, streaming and sports. He previously worked as a technology reporter at USA Today.

Expertise 5G, mobile networks, wireless carriers, phones, tablets, streaming devices, streaming platforms, mobile and console gaming,

AT&T is raising the rates for its older Unlimited Elite plans. In an email sent out to customers on Wednesday, the carrier says that “starting with the August bill cycle” the price of the plan will increase by $2.50 per line, per month. The price hike was also detailed in an accompanying support page

Formerly AT&T’s top unlimited plan, the Unlimited Elite option offered HBO Max (now just Max) and 40GB of hotspot data in addition to unlimited talk, text and data in the US, Mexico, Canada and 19 Latin American countries. It was discontinued last year and replaced with Unlimited Premium, which dropped the bundled HBO Max but added 10GB more of hotspot data. 

It was not immediately clear if Max’s price increases earlier this year played a role in the new rate hike or if AT&T planned to raise the rates on older plans that similarly bundle in the streaming service. 

CNET has reached out to AT&T for more information and will update if they respond. 

After retiring the Unlimited Elite plan last year AT&T reached a new agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery last summer to be able to offer HBO Max to AT&T’s wireless and internet users. Despite the new agreement, which talked about how AT&T would have “flexibility in how it delivers the service to customers,” AT&T has yet to add the streaming option back to any of its wireless plans.  

The increase in the rate plan comes just days after AT&T began reaching out to customers to alert them that it would be lowering the discount it offers users who pay their bills with credit cards on automatic payments. 

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