Newsday.com
3 Cell Carriers in Price Battle
By PETER SVENSSON
AP Technology Writer
4:15 PM EST, February 19, 2008
NEW YORK
Verizon
Wireless was apparently the first major carrier to make an "unlimited"
plan available nationwide with no domestic roaming or long-distance
fees. Its announcement was all but five hours old when AT&T
announced its own unlimited plan.
"This is a highly competitive
market and we're committed to moving fast to meet customer needs," said
Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility.
Three
hours later, T-Mobile followed suit, saying it would introduce a $99.99
plan on Thursday. Unlike the Verizon Wireless and AT&T plans,
T-Mobile's includes unlimited text and picture messaging, which costs
$14.99 per month when added to other T-Mobile plans.
The Verizon
Wireless plan is "likely to have repercussions for years to come,"
Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett wrote in a research report,
before the other two carriers introduced their competing plans.
Moffett
said Verizon Wireless' move was a blow to confusing pricing plans. He
likened it to Sprint's introduction of a flat-rate long-distance prices
for landline phones in the 1990s. That made it easier to compare plans
and hastened a rapid decline in prices, Moffett said.
A
relatively small number of cell-phone power users are expected to
benefit from the new plans, but investors saw little chance for the
carriers to recoup lost revenue by up-selling customers who now pay
less.
Shares of Verizon Communications Inc., which co-owns Verizon Wireless with
AT&T Inc.'s shares fell $1.99, or 5.3 percent, to $35.89.
T-Mobile USA is a unit of
There had been speculation that Sprint would introduce a nationwide unlimited plan. In May, it introduced one to residents of
Sprint
spokeswoman Emmy Anderson said the company is looking at how well the
offer is doing in the trial areas, and hasn't announced any plan to
take it nationwide.
Sprint's stock fell 34 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $9.23.
Helio
LLC, a small carrier that rents time on Sprint's network, is offering a
$99 monthly unlimited plan nationwide. It includes unlimited Web use,
e-mail and messaging.
Verizon
Wireless also introduced a $39.99-a-month plan for cellular broadband
using PC plug-in cards. Compared to the existing $59.99 plan, it's
capped not by download speed but by the amount of data the user can
download in a month: 50 megabytes instead of 5 gigabytes.
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