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AT&T Kills Unlimited Data Plans, Finally Announces iPhone Tethering

by Terrence O'Brien on June 2, 2010 at 01:35 PM

at&t announces tethering option
AT&T is making some changes to its data plans, and those amendments should save the vast majority of smartphone customers a few bucks a month. The current $30 flat rate unlimited data plan is getting the ax and being replaced by two new options: a $15 a month DataPlus plan with a 200MB cap, and a $25 DataPro plan with a 2GB limit. The damage done by going over your limit has also been mitigated. Every additional 200 megabytes on the DataPlus plan will cost you $15, while the DataPro plan will cost an additional $10 for every gigabyte over your cap. That's in sharp contrast to the company's current DataConnect plan for laptops, which costs $50 per-gigabyte over 5GB.

Tethering has also been greatly simplified. Using your phone as a modem for your laptop is now an extra $20 a month, and shares the 2GB monthly data ration with your phone. And yes, the tethering option will finally (seriously -- finally) be extended to the iPhone with the launch of OS 4.

While AT&T is getting rid of the all-you-can-download unlimited plan, the company was quick to point out that 98-percent of its smartphone customers use less than 2GB a month. Sure, those who decide to take advantage of the tethering option may slam into that wall pretty quickly, but your average iPhone or BlackBerry owner should have little issue. Even as heavy 3G data users here at Switched, we're usually hard pressed to break the 512MB barrier. So, while we're sad to see the truly unlimited data plan go the way of the dinosaurs, the new 2GB cap isn't as bad as it sounds. [From: Engadget]

Tags: att, cellphones, DataPlan, ipad, iphone, iphone data plan, IphoneDataPlan, smartphone, smartphones, tethering, top

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