AT&T - No More Unlimited Mobile Data

 

AT&T will introduce 2 new wireless plans on June 7th, with volume caps, and will not offer new subscribers the previous unlimited plans (including iPads owners).

The press release "AT&T Announces New Lower-Priced Wireless Data Plans to Make Mobile Internet More Affordable to More People" - here.

Some conclusions:

• The bigger plan has 2G limit. According to recent FCC data, the average consumption of iPhones was (over a year ago) 275MB and for other smartphones 150MB per month. So 2GB may sounds like unlimited - but with 2M iPads this may not be the case. See "FCC Annual Wireless Report: Mobile Internet Usage Information" - here
   
• AT&T encourages the use of Wi-Fi (where available) - as much as possible - "Each plan includes unlimited access at no additional charge to more than 20,000 AT&T Wi-Fi Hot Spots in the U.S." - See "AT&T: Times Square needs a Wifi Boost to cope with 3G Traffic" - here
   
• Tethering (using the phone as a modem) is made easy, for additional $20/month ":if you cant fight them - join them" (see "DPI Deployments (9): Orange France Selects Openet and Cisco for Parental Control and Tethering Prevention" - here)
   
• Notifications and monitoring - AT&T will send both text messages and emails when certain level are reached - similar to those required by "bill shock prevention". So no excuses when the bill shock issue will be mandatory!
   
• The attractive iPad unlimited plan ($29.99) is will not be offered to new customers. See "iPad 3G is Here" - so is the Extra Load on AT&T?" - here. This was too good to be true ..  

So while "AT&T expects these new data plans to have minimal revenue impact this year and to not affect previous guidance for 2010" - it may save Opex and Capex by delaying investments in network infrastructure - mainly in the radio and backhauls segments - and slowdown the transition to LTE.