I wanted to do a quick followup on my previous post regarding AT&T’s announced changes to their wireless plans.
While Apple certainly had a lot of good things to introduce at yesterday’s WWDC keynote, support for a new carrier wasn’t one of them. I can’t help but wonder what went on behind the scenes over the last 8 weeks (from the launch date of the iPad 3G) that made AT&T decide to change something so fundamental with it’s wireless data plan – and why they decided to make it effective the same day the iPhone 4 was introduced. It can’t help but feel something specific is responsible for the way this has played out.
Of course, sometimes coincidences are just what they seem, and that may be exactly what happened in this case. Whatever the reasons behind it, metered access has the potential to change usage habits in a way that may slow the development of some interesting mobile media initiatives. That would be unfortunate, and a real opportunity missed.
While I’ve discussed this only in terms of Apple’s mobile offerings, AT&T’s service changes have actually gone into effect for every smartphone/data device that they support on their network. RIM, WebOS and Android based devices are all impacted by this in the same way. With this broad an impact, market forces will definitely be at work here. And that means the success (or failure) of any metered access plan will ultimately be something the marketplace gets to decide.