AT&T No Contract Carrier: Aio Wireless to Launch Next Week

By Daniel Distant, Christian Post Reporter Friday, May 10, 2013

AT&T's no-contract pre-paid cell phone deals will come Thursday in limited markets through their latest brand, Aio Wireless. Aio Wireless is the mobile carrier's answer to T-Mobile's popular pre-paid, no-contract plans.

AT&T's no-contract plans will be launched through their subsidiary Aio Wireless in select cities at first, with more coverage to come throughout the next year. Houston, Orlando, and Tampa will be the first places to get Aio Wireless.

"We talked with no-annual-contract customers and created our service around what they want," Jennifer Van Buskirk, President of Aio Wireless, told Cio-Today.com. "We are set up to win over value-conscious customers who are increasingly moving towards smartphones and mobile broadband."

Aio Wireless plans cater to the very affordable, mid-range and smartphones with several kinds of plans. The first and most basic plans start at $35 a month for feature phones- these are flip phones and other non-smartphones, but the plan comes with unlimited talk, text and 250 MB of data before experiencing a slow down.

Aio Smart is the carrier's mid-range plan and includes smartphones and unlimited talk and text and 2GB of data, after which the throttling of data takes place. The high-end plan, Aio Pro, costs $70 a month but comes with 7GB of data- more than most users use a month, even with more than one device.

Aio is also catering to the burgeoning pre-paid tablet market with a $15-a-month plan. However, that plan only gives customers 250MB per month, which means users may want to stick to wi-fi internet as much as possible.

Although all of Aio's phone selection have not been confirmed, they will have the iPhone and some Android devices. Phones cost the full price because users aren't locked into a contract, but new customers coming from other wireless companies can bring their current phone and avoid the fee.