AT&T Moves to Metered Pricing for Data Plan

By Alice Straight, TMCnet Web Editor

As of June 7, AT&T (News - Alert), Inc. will be offering metered pricing for data packages for new subscribers to its mobile data services.

It's a move that AT&T says will save money for the majority of its customers.

Current customers can continue to use the company's $29.99-a-month unlimited data plan, but new customers will have to use the metered plan, which benefits light users of the data service but costs more for heavy users.

The new plan starts at $15 a month for downloads of 200 megabytes of data - the equivalent of approximately 400 web pages, 1,000 e-mails with no attachments, 50 online photos online or 20 minutes of video, according to AT&T. If users exceed the 200 megabytes usage they will automatically be charged another $15 for another 200 megabytes.

AT&T will also offer an option of $25 for 2 gigabytes of data, which is ten times more downloads than the 200 megabytes plan, if a customer goes over they will be charged another $10 a month for another gigabyte of data in the same month.

Users of Apple's (News - Alert) iPad, for which AT&T is also the only U.S. service, will be offered $25-a-month plans for 2 gigabytes of data, replacing the current $29.99 unlimited plan.

The company said 65 percent of its users use less than 200 megabytes of data per month and  98 percent of its customers use less than 2 gigabytes of data. 

(source: http://4g-wirelessevolution.tmcnet.com/broadband-stimulus/topics/mobile-networks/articles/87049-att-moves-metered-pricing-data-plan.htm)