AT&T Attempts to Cool Rumors of Tier iPhone Data Plans

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

arstecnica

The Apps Machine reported rumors of iPhone carrier AT&T introducing tiered data plans on December 11, 2009 now that iPhone users have been dubbed the Hummers of the network. Now we hear from the horses mouth that AT&T “has not made any decisions to do so”. In this underwhelming denial of the rumors, AT&T bigwig Ralph de la Vega says they have no intention to move away from unlimited data plans for iPhone users. He says the focus of his company will be to increase WiFi hotspots and to install mini cell towers within buildings (femtocells) to reduce the pressure the iPhone data hogs are placing on AT&T’s network. Will these data hungry people actually herd like sheep to the hotspots and the femtocells in order to reduce the load on the network? Are they really that altruistic? Doubtful at best.

People trust this company as far as they can throw it therefore this public declaration does not seem to have poured any cold water on the hot rumors of tiered data plans. Previously de la Vega said it is inevitable that high-bandwidth users will be charged for what they consume. Pretty standard corporate doubletalk. All this flip flopping is only fueling pressure for another carrier (Verizon) to be added for the iPhone asap, not to mention continuing to beat up AT&T’s corporate image. It remains to be seen what concrete actions will be taken, stay tuned as this story develops….