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By Rob Garretson
Starting June 7, AT&T is swapping its all-you-can-eat 3G data plans with tiered data pricing, in an attempt to make iPhone and other smartphones more accessible and cheaper for most users.
The new tiered data plans should cut costs for enterprise users who transmit up to 200MB of data per month, but could make iPhone and other AT&T smartphones more expensive for the most data-hungry mobile users who consume more than 2GB per month, which AT&T says is currently only 2 percent of its subscribers.
The move replaces the current $29.99 monthly unlimited data plan for 3G devices, including iPhone and iPad, with effectively three new tiers starting at $15 a month for the DataPlus plan, capped at 200MB, along with the $25 DataPro plan that includes up to 2GB of data transmission monthly. Users on the 2GB DataPro plan get an extra 1GB of data for an additional $10, when they exceed their limit, effectively creating a $35 3GB tier. (DataPlus customers will be automatically charged the $25 DataPro rate if they exceed their cap.)
Current customers will be able to switch to the new plans without a contract extension, AT&T said, or they can keep their existing unlimited plan for $29.99 monthly.
Beginning with the release of iPhone OS4 this summer, DataPro customers will also be able to add “tethering” capability -- which allows smartphones to act as a wireless modem to provide wireless broadband connections for laptops, netbooks and other devices -- for an additional $20 a month. The cost to use an iPhone as a mobile hotspot will be $45 a month, or about $15 more than the current iPhone data plan.
The new data pricing is intended to broaden the appeal of smartphones, officials said. “Virtually everything previouslydone while sitting at a computer can now be done on the go,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T’s mobility and consumer markets division in a statement. “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 estimates that the 200MB cap on the DataPlus plan offers enough bandwidth to send or receive 1,000 emails without attachments, another 150 e-mails with attachments, plus view 400 Web pages, post 50 photos on social media sites, and watch 20 minutes of streaming video within a month. The plan is designed for the 65 percent of AT&T smartphone customers who use less than 200MB monthly and primarily visit Web sites, send e-mail and use social networking apps.
The $25 DataPro plan provides enough network capacity to send and receive 10 times more email, view 4,000 Web pages, post 500 photos to social media sites, plus watch 200 minutes of streaming video in a month, AT&T estimates. Currently, 98 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 2 GB of data a month on average, the company added.
More details on the new AT&T data plans can be found here.
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