So by now almost everyone has heard about [AT&T’s new tiered data plans. Many people seem to be quite unhappy about these changes, while others (AT&T claims 98% of their smartphone users) stand to benefit.

In case you haven’t heard about this yet, here’s a quick rundown. AT&T will no longer offer its $30/month unlimited data for smartphones plan. Instead, they will offer DataPlus at $15/month, which will include 200MB of data usage (AT&T claims 65% of their smartphone userbase comes in under this level of usage). If you go over that 200MB, you can get another 200MB for $15 more. AT&T will also offer the DataPro plan, at $25/month and up to 2GB of data, with each additional 1GB being $10. AT&T has also stated that they will allow users to be liberal with plan changes–for instance you can retroactively upgrade from DataPlus to DataPro if you see yourself flying through your alloted data–therefore sparing yourself from overages. Separate from these will be an option for tethering your smartphone. The ability to tether alone will cost you another $20 a month, and tethering will then still use the data from your chosen plan (DataPlus or DataPro). So in essence, if you want the DataPro plan, plus the ability to tether your iphone (when 4.0 is released), it’ll cost you $40/month for 2GB of data. That 2GB won’t last too long if you tether….

So here’s my take. My wife uses an iPhone, and I’m on my Blackberry 9700. Neither of us are super heavy data users, and we do have wifi at home that we use when there. Over the past 5 months, my wife has wandered anywhere between 209 to 354MB of data usage (average around 262MB), and I have been anywhere from 115 to 285MB (average around 187MB). Neither of us do a whole lot of streaming video or music, or much tethering. Most of our data comes from Twitter, web surfing, emails, ocassionally watching a video or listening to some music or podcasts, some searching on Google Maps, and the like. I certainly don’t feel like I use a ton of data, but I also don’t feel like I’m a super light data user–same goes for my wife. I do have access to almost everything I need and want to do from my computer at work, while my wife’s workplace blocks a few sites she checks into a couple times a day (like Twitter and Facebook). So, with all this info, I can see that we could both choose the DataPro plans (2GB) at $25/month per phone, and we’d save a total of $10 off our bill per month–$120 a year. So in that case, it doesn’t sound too bad.

But…there’s always the other side. Some users out there (only 2% of AT&T’s smartphone users), don’t have computers at work, or don’t have wifi at home, or tether their devices (unbeknownst to AT&T, *gasp, the horror!) and easily make use of their $30/month unlimited data plans. If that describes you, the good news is that you’re still going to be ok. Users who currently have the $30/month unlimited data plan can keep the plan, even if they upgrade phones–the plan is “grandfathered” in to your account. One part of this I really don’t get is the tethering offering. They’re not charging you for using more data from their network, or different data, they’re simply charging you for the convenience of being able to tether. $20 for the convenience of tethering sounds a bit pricey to me, honestly. Good thing Tether for Blackberry is still around. ;)

I’m still undecided as to how I feel about this. I feel many users will be happy at the prospect of saving lots of money ($15 a month in savings, $180/year or $5 a month, $60/year), while others would end up having to pay a lot more for the same services they currrently use. I guess I can say that these new plans are good news for those that want to save money and don’t use more than 200MB or 2GB of data, and its also good news that the old unlimited plan is grandfathered in. I also expect to see other carriers follow suit with this tiered data pricing scheme. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how good the competition will be…

What are your thoughts on this? Happy to save some money? Pissed? Let us know!

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