In a side by side comparison, Consumer Reports has test and compared AT&T Next and T-Mobile Jump, with some suprising results. In the comparison, purchasing a 16-GB iPhone 5 would cost $1,830 with AT&T Next, while the total cost of signing up for a similar plan with T-Mobile Jump ends in overall charges of $1,422 ; a difference of nearly $400.

Both AT&T Next and T-Mobile allow customers to upgrade their smartphone or cellular tablets early, when subscribers agree to a monthly payment plan of sorts. While AT&T proclaims that its Next program features “no upgrade fee, activation fee, or financing fee”, the cost of an iPhone 5 – $120 per month with unlimited talk and text, with 3-GB of data, is significantly higher than the cost of purchasing the same phone through T-Mobile Jump ($60 for unlimited talk and text, and 2-GB of data, with a $10 activation fee).

Despite the $146 downpayment, $10 SIM card fee for new customers, and upgrade cost of $145, overall T-Mobile Jump is still more than $400 less expensive than the AT&T Next program.