AT&T triggered plenty of debate on Wednesday when the carrier unveiled its new tiered data plans for smartphone users and discontinued the unlimited data option for new customers. New smartphone (and iPhone) owners will have to choose between two plans: 200MB of data at $15 per month or 2GB at $25 per month.

AT&T says that 200MB of data is enough to send and receive 1,000 e-mails (no attachments) and 150 e-mails with attachments, view 400 Web pages, post 50 photos on social media sites, and watch 20 minutes of streaming video.

If you go over your data limit, AT&T will charge you another $15 for 200MB or $10 dollars for 1GB of data, depending on your data plan. AT&T will also offer a tethering option later this summer for an extra $20–tethering turns your iPhone into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. AT&T’s tethering comes almost a year after Apple added tethering functionality to the iPhone OS, but AT&T’s extra tethering charge will not come with any extra GB of data only the right to tether your phone.

AT&T’s new data plans come just days before Apple is expected to announce a new iPhone model on June 7 at the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference. AT&T’s new iPhone data plans will also go into effect on June 7.

Mixed Reactions

The response from bloggers and blog commenters to AT&T’s news varied from those who were supportive of the changes, to those who were completely outraged.

Here are some of the highlights.

PCWorld Editor Ed Albro noted on his Twitter feed that AT&T’s new tiered data plan would have saved him $75 over the past seven months; however, PCWorld’s commenters took a different point of view. “I was thinking of going to att for the dell streak, now i think att can suck it,” said sroach23.

Meanwhile, RWolfShipon is taking some serious action in response to AT&T’s new policy, “I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. False advertising. A bait-and-switch. Steve Jobs should never have promised us an unlimited plan only for AT&T to change the game a month after the iPad 3G was released.” It should be noted that current iPhone owners can keep their unlimited data plans; AT&T says you will not be forced into its new tiered system unless you want to add the tethering service.

Over at Mobile Crunch, Nicholas Deleon wrote a sardonic post entitled “Be thankful that AT&T is looking out for our best interests.” Deleon went on to thank AT&T for lifting “the burden of unlimited data plans for smartphones.” Mobile Crunch commenter james agreed with Deleon’s take on AT&T, writing “AT&T makes billions of dollars and instead of bettering their network so it can keep up with demand they’d rather screw the consumer.”

Tar and tethering

Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber was unimpressed with AT&T’s tethering plan, arguing that the company was charging its customers for nothing. “It’s one thing to charge extra for tethering on an “unlimited” data plan, but it’s outrageous to charge $20 when the bandwidth is already capped,” Gruber wrote. Others around the Web agreed with Gruber’s assessment including MacRumors commenter wickywahwah who wrote, “$20 for tethering is BS, but i guess there is always the jailbreak option.”

However, over on Macworld some people offered a different view, including mkeikha who said, “Tethering is a luxury, for which users should pay a premium.”

On GigaOm, Mark Collins, AT&T’s senior vice president in charge of mobility products responded to the charge that AT&T’s new tethering option was just a convenience charge. “That capability [tethering] is enabling something you can’t do today,” Collins said. “You’re going to use more data so the price is based on the value that will be delivered.”

My Take

While AT&T’s tiered data pricing may be unsettling to some users, you might be surprised to discover how little data you actually use. For example, on my iPhone 3GS I have used about 1.42GB of data in the last three months, and I use my phone for GPS navigation, push e-mail, Web browsing, YouTube, and some live video streaming. That works out to about 484MB of data per month, which means I would need AT&T’s 2GB per month plan. The downside is that I’d end up paying for an amount of data I would probably never use; however, since AT&T’s current data plan is $30 per month I’d still save five dollars every month on data fees.

Perhaps an improvement to AT&T’s tiered plan would be to offer a 500MB monthly option, and cut the extra tethering charge.

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Offers $15 for 200 megabytes

AT&T Inc plans to stop offering an unlimited pricing plan for new subscribers to its mobile data services, a move that it says will cut prices for as many as 98 percent of its customers.

The exclusive U.S. provider for Apple Inc’s iPhone said the new metered pricing, which takes effect June 7, means the more customers use their phones for web surfing the more they will have to pay for the service.

Current customers can continue to use the company’s $29.99-a-month unlimited data plan, but new customers will be shunted to the new plan, which benefits light users of the data service but costs more for heavy users.

The company is betting that by curtailing downloads by heavy users, it can make the wireless Web more affordable for more people. If it reduces downloads, the new pricing plan may also ease capacity constraints that have caused network problems for the company in high usage areas such as New York.

The new plans would start at $15 a month for downloads of 200 megabytes of data. That equals about 400 web pages, 1,000 e-mails with no attachments, 50 online photos online or 20 minutes of video, according to AT&T.

If users exceed the 200 megabytes usage they will automatically be charged another $15 for another 200 megabytes. The company said 65 percent of its users use less than 200 megabytes of data per month.

The next tier costs $25 for 2 gigabytes of data, which is ten times more downloads than the 200 megabytes plan. AT&T said 98 percent of its customers use less than 2 gigabytes of data.

The $25-a-month customers will be charged another $10 a month for another gigabyte of data in the same month.

Users of Apple’s iPad, for which AT&T is also the only U.S. service, will be offered $25-a-month plans for 2 gigabytes of data, replacing the current $29.99 unlimited plan.

AT&T shares were up 17 cents to $24.50 in premarket trading.

For a little $1 iPhone app, Line2 sure has the potential to shake up an entire industry. 

It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T’s (T) signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.

And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.

Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number — a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that you’ll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. Your second line can be an 800 number, if you wish, or you can transfer an existing number.

To that end, Toktumi offers, on its Web site, a raft of Google (GOOG) Voice-ish features that are intended to help a small businesses look bigger: call screening, Do Not Disturb hours and voice mail messages sent to you as e-mail. You can create an “automated attendant” — “Press 1 for sales,” “Press 2 for accounting,” and so on — that routes incoming calls to other phone numbers. Or, if you’re pretending to be a bigger business than you are, route them all to yourself.

The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhone’s own phone software. The dialing pad, your iPhone Contacts list, your recent calls list and visual voice mail all look just like the iPhone’s.

(Let’s pause for a moment here to blink, dumbfounded, at that point. Apple’s (AAPL) rules prohibit App Store programs that look or work too much like the iPhone’s own built-in apps. For example, Apple rejected the Google Voice app because, as Apple explained to the Federal Communications Commission, it works “by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls.” That is exactly what Line2 does. Oh well — the Jobs works in mysterious ways.)

So you have a second line on your iPhone. But that’s not the best part.

Line2 also turns the iPhone into a dual-mode phone. That is, it can make and receive calls either using either the AT&T airwaves as usual, or — now this is the best part — over the Internet. Any time you’re in a wireless hot spot, Line2 places its calls over Wi-Fi instead of AT&T’s network.

That’s a game-changer. Where, after all, is cellphone reception generally the worst? Right — indoors. In your house or your office building, precisely where you have Wi-Fi. Line2 in Wi-Fi means rock-solid, confident reception indoors.

Line2 also runs on the iPod Touch. When you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, your Touch is now a full-blown cellphone, and you don’t owe AT&T a penny.

But wait, there’s more.

Turns out Wi-Fi calls don’t use up any AT&T minutes. You can talk all day long, without ever worrying about going over your monthly allotment of minutes. Wi-Fi calls are free forever.

Well, not quite free; Line2 service costs $15 a month (after a 30-day free trial).

But here’s one of those cases where spending more could save you money. If you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot most of the time (at work, for example), that’s an awful lot of calling you can do in Wi-Fi — probably enough to downgrade your AT&T plan to one that gives you fewer minutes. If you’re on the 900-minute or unlimited plan ($90 or $100 a month), for example, you might be able to get away with the 450-minute plan ($70). Even with Line2′s fee, you’re saving $5 or $15 a month.

Line2 also lets you call overseas phone numbers for Skype-like rates: 2 to 5 cents a minute to most countries. (A full table of rates is available at toktumi.com.) As a handy globetrotters’ bonus, calls home to numbers in the United States from overseas hot spots are free.

All of these benefits come to you when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot, because your calls are carried by the Internet instead of by ATT. Interestingly enough, though, Line2 can also make Internet calls even when you’re not in a hot spot.

It can, at your option, place calls over AT&T’s 3G data network, where it’s available. Every iPhone plan includes unlimited use of this 3G network — it’s how your iPhone sends e-mail and surfs the Web. So once again, Line2 calls don’t use up any of your monthly voice minutes.

Unfortunately, voice connections on the 3G network aren’t as strong and reliable as the voice or Wi-Fi methods. Cellular data networks aren’t made for seamless handoffs from cell tower to tower as you drive, for example — there’s not much need for it if you’re just doing e-mail and Web — so dropped calls are more likely. Fortunately, if you’re on a 3G data-network call and you walk into a hot spot, Line2 switches to the more reliable Wi-Fi network seamlessly, in midcall.

Whenever you do have an Internet connection — either Wi-Fi or a strong 3G area — you’re in for a startling treat. If you and your calling partner are both Line2 subscribers, Line2 kicks you into superhigh audio-quality mode (16-bit mode, as the techies call it).

Your calling partners sound as if they’re speaking right into the mike at an FM radio station. It’s almost too clear; you hear the other person’s breathing, lip smacks, clothing rustling and so on. After years of suffering through awful cellphone audio, it’s quite a revelation to hear what you’ve been missing.

Now, this all sounds wonderful, and Line2 generally is wonderful. But there’s room for improvement.

First, as you’ve no doubt already concluded, understanding Line2 is complicated. You have three different ways to make calls, each with pros and cons.

You miss a certain degree of refinement, too. The dialing pad doesn’t make touch-tone sounds as you tap the keys. There’s no Favorites list within the Line2 app. You can’t get or send text messages on your Line2 line. (The company says it will fix all this soon.)

There’s a faint hiss on Line2 calls, as if you’re on a long-distance call in 1970. The company says that it deliberately introduces this “comfort noise” to reassure you that you’re still connected, but it’s unnecessary. And sometimes there’s a voice delay of a half-second or so (of course, you sometimes get that on regular cellphone calls, too).

Finally, a note about incoming calls. If the Line2 app is open at the time, you’re connected via Wi-Fi, if available. If it’s not running, the call comes in through AT&T, so you lose the benefits of Wi-Fi calling. In short, until Apple blesses the iPhone with multitasking software, you have to leave Line2 open whenever you put the phone to sleep. That’s awkward.

Still, Line2 is the first app that can receive incoming calls via either Wi-Fi or cellular voice, so you get the call even if the app isn’t running. That’s one of several advantages that distinguish it from other voice-over-Internet apps like Skype and TruPhone.

Another example: If you’re on a Wi-Fi call using those other programs, and someone calls your regular iPhone number, your first call is unceremoniously disconnected. Line2, on the other hand, offers you the chance to decline the incoming call without losing your Wi-Fi call.

Those rival apps also lack Line2′s call-management features, visual voice mail and conference calling with up to 20 other people. And Line2 is the only app that gives you a choice of call methods for incoming and outgoing calls.

All of this should rattle cell industry executives, because let’s face it: the Internet tends to make things free. Cell carriers go through life hoping nobody notices the cellephant in the room: that once everybody starts making free calls over the Internet, it’s Game Over for the dollars-for-minutes model.

Line2, however, brings us one big step closer to that very future. It’s going to be a wild ride.

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