AT&T announced new data plan rates for smart phone users today.  Don’t worry– if you currently have a $30/month unlimited plan for your iPhone, you will be able to continue the plan for as long as you like.  New subscribers in the US will have two choices:  1) a $25/month plan with a cap of 2 gigabytes of downloads per month; or 2) a $15/month plan with a 200 megabyte cap.  Users who go over their cap for the $25 plan will be able to purchase additional download capacity at the rate of $10 per additional gigabyte.  Those on the $15 dollar plan can buy additional capacity at the rate of $15 per 200 megabytes.

AT&T claims that the new $25 plan will satisfy 98% of current subscribers’ needs, and about 65% of current subscribers would be fine under the $15 plan.  I guess the 2% who use over 5 gigabytes of data per month will just want to stick with the current $30 for unlimited download plan!  Hmmm… I wonder if you can transfer ownership of a data plan?  If you can, AT&T probably just created a black market for grandfathered “unlimited data” plans!

By Sci-Guy-Mike