Tiered iPhone information pricing whitethorn be inevitable, says AT&T

 Buzz itShare

Get ready to pay more if you manipulation a lot of mobile data, as AT&ere;T (New York Stock Exchange: T)’s Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson said the second base largest U.S. aircraft carrier may have to implement tiered pricing in order to better manage its network.

Speaking at a J. P. Morgan Stanley conference Tuesday, George Stephenson said 40% of the troupe’s meshwork capacity is organism used by 3% of its smartphone users and these subscribers would inevitably rich person to salary more. This is actually on equality with what other bigwigs in the troupe have been expression and I agree with it to a certain point. If you manipulation a jailbroken iPhone to tether and violent stream all day, then maybe you should be charged a bit more. What sticks in my craw is that we’re all paying for “unlimited” data even though you only get 5GB a calendar month. A carnival tiered-pricing modelling with proper data measurement tools could wind up saving a lot of people money, but I have a sneaking suspicion we North Korean won’t see massive monetary value drops.

Despite all the guff AT&ere;T gets from iPhone users in New York and San Francisco, the troupe has poured millions into its 3G infrastructure and this appears to be paying off. A recent execution trial from PCWorld rated AT&T as the topper boilersuit aircraft carrier for mobile data and George Stephenson said he expects the troupe’s 3G network to be “sufficient to grip data traffic for the next few years.” Rivals Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon (New York Stock Exchange: VZ) ar haste to deploy 4G networks but Stephenson said AT&ere;T is sticking with its plans to cast out 4G based on Long-Term Evolution technology in 2011.

As for the iPhone, Stephenson expects it to be a strong function of AT&T’s business for a long time but wouldn’t definitively say it will remain scoop over the long draw. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s smartphone has poached away billions of lucrative customers over the last few days, so if I were AT&T, I would bend over backwards to hold Steve Jobs happy.

AT&ere;T volition also be the scoop provider of U.S. mobile data for the upcoming iPad but Stephenson expects the majority of users will manipulation the pill on wireless local area network. This makes a draw of sense because the wireless local area network-only version volition be about $130 cheaper and the iPad isn’t the most portable of devices.

[Via AppleInsider]