Sam OliverAT&T announced this week that a new data plan for iPhone owners, dubbed "DataPro," will be offered starting June 7, providing 2GB of data for $25 per month. Tethering costs an additional $20 per month, and lets customers use their handset to share Internet connectivity with another device, such as a laptop. Tethering will be available this summer when iPhone OS 4 is released.
AT&T will also offer a less expensive data plan, called "DataPlus," which offers 200MB for $15 per month. The carrier noted in its press release that 65 percent of its smartphone customers use less than 200MB per month, while 98 percent use less than 2GB per month.
Customers who near their cap for the month will be sent a text message notifying them when they reach a certain usage level. For customers who exceed the cap, an extra 1GB in the DataPro plan costs $10, and an extra 200MB in the DataPlus plan runs $15.
Current AT&T customers are not required to switch to the new plans and sacrifice their unlimited data, but can do so without a contract extension.
AT&T also announced that it would discontinue the existing $29.99-per-month unlimited 3G data plans for the iPad for new customers. It will be replaced by a no-contract plan that runs $25 a month for 2GB of data. Customers who have the existing unlimited plan are not required to change.
Plans for voice and texting through AT&T will remain unchanged after June 7.
"AT&T helps mobilize everything on the Internet — your favorite web sites, TV shows, music, games and social networks. Virtually everything previously done while sitting at a computer can now be done on the go," said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. "To give more people the opportunity to experience these benefits, we’re breaking free from the traditional 'one-size-fits-all' pricing model and making the mobile Internet more affordable to a greater number of people."
AT&T has long hinted that changes to its unlimited data plans were coming, as the company has faced network issues and bandwidth problems. The carrier has sought ways to encourage the heaviest bandwidth consumers to reduce or modify their usage of the AT&T network.
Last December, one AT&T executive said he believed it was inevitable that users who utilize more bandwidth than their share will have to pay more than the rest. At the time, the company said that 40 percent of the network capacity for AT&T is used by just 3 percent of smartphone users. Other reports have alleged that the average iPhone user consumes 10 times the bandwidth of a typical smartphone user.
On Tuesday, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said that he felt AT&T was doing "pretty good" in improving its network, though he admitted they "could do better." Jobs revealed that Apple and AT&T executives meet once a quarter to discuss issues. He also noted that AT&T deals with "way more data traffic than anyone else."
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I was actually crafting this exact post when I checked to see if the site had already generated it. Good for me for not hitting the post button, now it becomes a reply instead.
Finance.yahoo.com
......One new plan will cost $25 per month and offer 2 gigabytes of data per month, which AT&T says will be enough for 98 percent of its smart phone customers. Additional gigabytes will cost $10 each.
A second plan will cost $15 per month for 200 megabytes of data, which AT&T says is enough for 65 percent of its smart phone customers. If they go over, they'll pay another $15 for 200 megabytes.
All I've got to say is Tenobell, I was right. Us geeks know that AT&T's former plan, even when called unlimited had a small print limit of 5 gigs. Since you cannot buy one gig alone on the new plan that means AT&T has raised the cost of obtaining 5 gigs from $30 to $75. Do we even want to go into what it would cost via the 200 meg/$15 plan?
You can bet your butt they didn't need to wait until LTE to do it either.
That Droid Incredible, if they can keep them in stock, or Droid ___________ du jour is looking pretty darn good right now. I received an email that Audible.com client has just gone beta on Android.
Maybe I'll just restart my LG Dare with Page Plus and stop sweating all these ever increasing nickles and dimes. It's just getting ridiculous how much money they want. Much like cable/sat television, it is too quickly becoming an all or nothing proposition with the all in approach costing triple what it did before.
Those sound like incredibly shitty plans. So, not only will there be a hard cap, but on top of the cap you will have to pay significantly more for tethering?
I hate my carrier (Rogers/Fido) but damn I am glad for them right now. I pay $30 for 6GB and no extra for tethering.
This might save me a bit of money. My wife barely goes over 150MB or so and she surely won't go over 2GB on her iPhone 3GS. I could just drop her data plan to 200MB or switch it to 2GB on demand and save some bucks. Hell, a $15 savings a month is a big flippin' deal.
Hell, I could probably even drop down to the 2GB plan myself and save another $5 a month. I think the most I ever used in a month was 1GB, and that was because I was tethering in Las Vegas because the hotel Wi-Fi during CES 2010 was absolutely horrible.
I know that a lot of people will bitch about this, but it works for me
I don't really have a problem with this, mostly because of how I use my phone. But for tethering, it looks pretty bad..and expensive. I should end up saving $5 a month this way. In fact, I may even be able to get the cheaper plan. I might not be using 200MB a month.
Kinda nasty with the tethering option. Cut the amount of data available and then charge you extra to use that data via tethering.
This is the first time I've actually LIKED what Rogers has offered in comparison to another carrier.