Timeless wireless?
Verizon followed by AT&T and T-Mobile announce a $ 99.99 "unlimited" wireless plan
Today with AT&T, $ 39.99 a month buys you 450 minutes a month for use weekdays 6 am to 9 pm. Nights and weekends are free. For $ 5.99 a month you can stretch the nights to start at 7 pm and end 7 am, so potentially another 3,600 minutes a month. Mobile to Mobile calls within AT&T network are free. You can rollover unused minutes for up to 12 months. For most folks, that's more than enough. So the "unlimited" plan seems overpriced other than for a few heavy users. And Verizon also moved to meter data usage. AT&T for now is sticking with unlimited data access, though is is said to monitor excessive usage.
Not exactly a "price war", though as Larry Dignan indicates it may be the start of one. In some areas, MetroPCS offers an unlimited plan for $ 35 a month. For folks who do not roam much outside their home area that plan or others from Sprint are better.
As I have written before, with other economic worries not sure people can sustain their mobile device as the likely 3rd most expensive purchase after their home and car. Verizon and AT&T will have to do better in many parts of their plans.
Internet access is monopoly or duopoly or a heavily regulated industry. The middle mile connections from the local network to the Internet backbone may or may not be competitive depending on where you are. But the Internet backbone itself is extremely competitive. If you can get to a major Internet Exchange Point in the US or Europe, there are many providers offering extremely competitive rates for Internet Transit. Typically these services are priced on a megabit per second per month basis (Mbit/ s/ Month)...
Posted by: Network 2 Computers :: Share Files, Printers & Internet | July 22, 2008 at 06:23 PM