AT&T wants a bigger spot in your home now – and Google is the key to its new plan

To make the hardware easier to buy upfront, AT&T is also partnering with Affirm, so people can spread payments over time instead of dropping a big amount all at once. Otherwise, the Essential plan costs $10.99 per month plus tax, while the Professional plan is $21.99 per month plus tax. Both require AT&T wireless and/or internet service.

A bigger play for your home

Home security is becoming a priority for more and more people, and AT&T clearly wants a bigger seat at that table. The entire telecom industry has been shifting directions lately, and carriers are trying to move beyond being “just carriers.” They want to sit at the center of your connected life – your Wi-Fi, your devices, your smart home, your security system, all of it.

With Connected Life, AT&T is positioning its network as the backbone of the smart home. Its wireless coverage supports Abode’s monitoring and backs Google’s hardware, and the whole thing is pitched as safer, simpler, and more personalized than what people have been used to.

Part of a bigger strategy

AT&T has been steadily building up this home-ecosystem approach. It just introduced Wi-Fi Personalization, an AI-driven feature that learns your daily habits and adjusts how your home internet behaves to make sure whatever you’re doing – gaming, video calls, streaming – gets the bandwidth it needs at the right time.

And I think the strategy is pretty obvious at this point: mobile service alone isn’t enough anymore. Carriers want to expand into every corner of your connected life so you feel less tempted to switch. After all, once your internet, your smart-home gear, and your home security are all tied to one provider, leaving becomes a much bigger decision.

That’s especially true now that switching carriers is getting easier. T-Mobile already lets people switch digitally in minutes, and AT&T is preparing to offer the same convenience next year. But if switching becomes effortless, the carriers need a different reason to keep customers loyal. Offering more services – and tying them into a bigger, stickier ecosystem – is how they do that.

If you think about it, it’s basically the same logic behind how Apple keeps people inside its world. When so much of your daily life is woven into a single system, it’s hard to walk away, even if the competition is offering something tempting. AT&T seems to be heading in that direction with its new home strategy, and Connected Life is the latest piece of that puzzle.