AT&T Introduces New Smartphone Plans

AT&T has traditionally had a $30 mandatory smartphone data plan that got you unlimited use of data services on your phone. A bit pricey for someone who only wanted an email or two, but for most smartphone users this was a good value. It meant you could buy an iPhone and play with all the "apps" you wanted with no fear and a predictable bill. Today, AT&T introduced new smartphone data plans. The new plans to replace the $30 unlimited are called DataPro - $25 for 2GB with $10/GB overage and DataPlus - $15 for 200MB (just under 0.2GB the way binary math works) with $15/200MB overage. AT&T had already eliminated unlimited laptop plans years ago and instead offers $60/month for $5GB with $50/GB overage.

All I have to say is YIKES! I'm an Alltel customer who will become AT&T with unlimited data on an HTC Hero and a USB data card. Last month, though, I had a BlackBerry Tour MOST of the month, I got the HTC Hero at the end of the month. I will need to seriously change some habits. Here was my data usage:

BlackBerry: 0.8GB
Data Card: 49.6GB

The month before:

BlackBerry: 3.4GB
Data Card: 97.7GB

And one before that:

BlackBerry: 11.3GB
Data Card: 28.5GB

So yeah, 2GB smartphone caps and 5GB data card caps will NOT make me a happy camper when AT&T eventually takes over Alltel here...