Unlimited Wireless Plans Coming

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).

Comments

Re:Let's talk about tethers

[meringuoid]

We've got phones that should be capable of doing all sorts of fantastic things, but can't (or won't) unless we buy our software from the carrier, pay the bandwidth fees to them to transfer it (because we can't just plug our phone into our PC and transfer software that way), then continue paying subscription and bandwidth fees if we want to continue using our software. We have to sign 2 year contracts just to get a phone at a reasonable price.

Sony Ericsson K800i, came with a USB cable which I've used to transfer some mp3s to it to use as ringtones, perfectly happy to run anything I care to name from getjar.com or transferred from PC with no strings attached, perfectly happy to send and receive mp3s or images via infrared or Bluetooth. Cost £70 then £12 per month on a 12 month contract.

Oh, wait... you're American. Sorry.