Dialing for $: AT&T’S yearly upgrade plan

Tech lovers looking to upgrade their smartphones every year will soon have a second option to do so — but it’ll cost an extra $600 over two years to be hip.

AT&T announced yesterday a new calling plan, called Next, that will allow customers to upgrade every 12 months — instead of the standard twoyear period — but they will have to pay full price for their gadgets.

Most US wireless customers pay $200 for highend smartphones — with carriers eating a subsidy of up to $450, an amount they hope to recoup through profits derived from twoyear contracts.

TMobile rolled out a plan similar to AT&T’s earlier this year.

The TMobile plan, called Jump, allows customers to upgrade phones twice a year by trading in the old phones.

TMobile’s Andrew Sherrard, senior vice president of marketing, yesterday criti cized AT&T’s new program as a copycat and said it doesn’t lower service costs even though consumers pay full price for the phone.

“Consumers are paying for the same phone twice,” he said, because carriers like AT&T build the cost of subsidies into subscribers’ bills.

Verizon also is reportedly exploring similar payment structures.

Since TMobile’s secondquarter payment plan overhaul, it is gaining 1.8 subscribers from AT&T for every one it loses, Sherrard said.

Both AT&T’s Next and TMobile’s Jump come with only monthtomonth contracts. TMobile data plans cost less than AT&T’s, but AT&T’s Next doesn’t require a downpayment; TMobile’s Jump does.

Unless a customer is constantly paying for the latest phone, the Next plan — at up to $50 a month — will typically cost more than traditional plans.