AT&T: No plans to alter the company’s iPhone data prices

“With pricing in the smartphone race heating up, AT&T Inc. as been slow to shift gears,” Roger Cheng and Ben Charny report for Dow Jones Newswires. “The Dallas telecommunications giant has stubbornly kept unchanged the pricey data plans required for the Apple Inc. iPhone – a chief complaint and impediment for consumers. The decision to hold pat comes as the industry increasingly addresses the downturn in consumer spending with lower priced service plans and phones.”

“AT&T wireless chief Ralph de la Vega said last month that the company was considering a lower tier. Any such plan likely would include limits on how long users could surf the Web or how many programs they can download over the air,” Cheng and Charny report.

“But AT&T is reluctant to offer a cheaper plan because it would lose a rich source of revenue used to offset the subsidies it pays Apple to keep the iPhone at the $200 level, as well as the cost of delivering that service. AT&T has to balance the growing number of iPhone users with the amount of traffic they take up in the network,” Cheng and Charny report. “In addition, investors wouldn’t be happy with the lower margins.”

“AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said there are no plans to alter the company’s data prices, which will be in effect when the iPhone 3G S launches June 19,” Cheng and Charny report. “‘We’ve been very happy with our pricing,’ he said. The average monthly bill for an iPhone user is in the mid-$90 range, according to AT&T. Apple declined to comment for the story.”

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