RIM Welcomes AT&T’s Tiered Data Pricing

U.S. wireless carrier AT&T this morning announced two new smartphone-data pricing tiers for its wireless customers and eliminated its former unlimited data option. The new data packages are $15 a month for up to 200MB of data; and $25 a month for 2GB. The new pricing tiers go into effect on June 7, and they must also be bundled with a voice and messaging plan. AT&T claims that 65% of their users currently use less than 200MB and 98% use less than 2GB. (More specifics on the AT&T changes are available on the carrier’s site.)

RIM states that they are welcoming this new change since they say it will translate into savings for BlackBerry users. We have not gotten an official confirmation from AT&T stating BlackBerry users will also be able to use these new plans since traditionally AT&T charged $29.99 for personal BlackBerry plans and $44.99 for Enterprise BES compatible plans unlike the regular smartphone plans that were $20-$30.

RIM claims that BlackBerry users on average use about 54MB of compressed/optimized bandwidth which could mean that many BlackBerry AT&T users will be able to cut their plans in half. As per RIM:

These new pricing plans will translate to savings for BlackBerry customers due to the industry-leading efficiency of the BlackBerry platform. Thanks to RIM’s longstanding focus on wireless data efficiency and investment in related technologies and infrastructure, the BlackBerry platform is significantly more efficient than other mobile platforms and this leads to a major advantage for users with tiered pricing plans

Jim Balsillie, RIM’s Co-CEO had the following to say about AT&T’s change:

AT&T’s strategic pricing move is great news for BlackBerry smartphone customers,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “We envision a day when all mobile phones are smartphones and we believe AT&T’s new service plans, together with RIM’s leading portfolio of BlackBerry products and services, will help attract a much broader range of consumers.

We wonder if additional U.S. carriers will follow suit and start to offer competitive data-pricing plans.

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