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Unlimited Wireless Plans Coming

Posted by kdawson on from the talk-much-surf-often-text-lots dept.

An anonymous reader tells us about a BusinessWeek story claiming that in a few years most wireless plans will be unlimited. And pretty costly: unlimited cell calling, SMS, and data for on the order of $115 - $150 a month. Sprint is conducting a trial of such an offering in San Francisco, with the intent of rolling it out nationwide, and other carriers are said to be sure to follow suit. An interesting claim in the article is that in 5 years time, 40% of the US population will be untethered from landlines and using their cell numbers exclusively (vs. 15% now).

3 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Just like ISPs! by inviolet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Our customers have unlimited bandwidth, but some are more unlimited than others!"

    Now that we know how ISPs have chosen to implement 'unlimited', we should expect similar from the cellular companies. It won't be long before they've all merged together anyway.

    The FDA requires food products that contain no actual cheese to refrain from using the word 'cheese' in their names. And so you get things like 'cheez whiz'. I say we require ISPs and Cellular companies to do likewise. Then we'll know when our plan is truly 'unlimited' versus merely 'unlymited'. :)

    --
    FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
  2. Unlimited? Has to be MUCH cheaper. by gelfling · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Today I have one land line exclusively for the 'unlimited' aspect of the MCI Neighborhood plan because that line accrues 4-5,000 (thousand) minutes a month. It costs $72 including taxes. I also have an AT&T CallVantage VoIP line for work and I believe its 'unlimited' is actually capped at 5,000 minutes/month. But before you all tell me to discard MCI landline let me tell you that it's orders of magnitude more reliable than CallVantage. If I had to pay for AT&T VoIP, I wouldn't. It sucks. Then I have 5 lines on a shared minute Sprint plan. 2,500 minutes/month. So if Sprint wants to give me 'unlimited' minutes it has to be an additional 5,000 minutes per month and it can't cost more than $50/month plus all the garbage taxes. So the price has to come down by at least half. Compared to crappy VoIP for $25/month 'unlimited' cell would have to come down in price by 3/4ths.

  3. Long Distance by EthanS · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Its only a matter of time, long distance calling on landlines was per minute up until about 5 or so years ago. Now most plans are unlimited long distance. Cell phones are just a few years behind. Competition drives innovationa and eventually leads to the lowest common denominator type solution, like unlimited calling.