AT&T FirstNet subscribers are getting the "gift" of a $3 price increase for the New Year

Mobile customers have become fairly used to mobile plans creeping upward in pricing bit by bit. Not only has the advertised price for postpaid service increased significantly over the last few years, but carriers have even started to nickel and dime customers with infrastructure fees that it raises without any warning beyond a small notice in your bill. Typically bigger plan changes are more openly announced but it appears that’s not always the case, at least not for the AT&T-backed FirstNet.

Redditor CustomerNo6626 noted the bottom of their bill indicated their FirstLine plan would see “a $3/month price increase starting January 15, 2025”. Other customers have since confirmed they are also seeing the increase.

While I realize it’s only a $3 increase, this is a pretty sizable bump compared to the $.20 to $.40 fee increases usually snuck into bills this way. At the very least I believe increases greater than $1 should be announced through multiple efforts including text messages and email. It genuinely seems sneaky to add bill increases as a small notion in what’s often a multi-page bill.

To be fair, even with the increase from $45 to $48, if you are a first responder who needs a reliable service with truly prioritized data it’s hard to beat FirstNet’s quality of service. The bigger issue is that all the carriers keep cranking the bills up without much warning, hoping people won’t notice. That’s something I personally feel needs to stop.