AT&T announced a new mobile data plan last week, which removed “unlimited” plans as an option. And with other operators, including O2 and Orange, following the same path we ask what this means for mobile?

What’s the story?

Announced last week, the new data rates from AT&T were very generous for high-end data users – but they were definitely no longer unlimited. The plans capped out at 2GB. Less than 2% of AT&T subscribers reach this cap per month, but seeing as the operator has over 80 million wireless users that’s still over 150,000 people who are directly affected by the change.

What about Orange and O2?

Orange is expected to cut unlimited plans from its tariffs this year. Everything Everywhere, the UK joint-venture of Orange and T-Mobile, also believes that unlimited plans are unsustainable. O2 has also caused some fuss by announcing that data will no longer be unlimited, from the same date that the iPhone 4.0 hits shelves.

What we think?

There has been some upset over this move away from unlimited data but the complaints have mainly come from the small percentage of users who access huge amounts of data over mobile. I have to admit, I think that unlimited data was always a bad idea. Current 3G networks simply can’t support that kind of traffic – they were not designed with “unlimited” data in mind. Technological and bandwidth limitations mean that a relatively small number of high mobile data users can slow down the network speed in an entire area – which lead directly to the network blackouts in New York over Christmas.

The problem here is that mobile operators got greedy – they threw data services at people as a way of gaining and retaining subscribers. But they don’t seem to have realised that once they gave limitless mobile data to people, they would make full use of it. Again, it’s a minority of people who are actually affected by this. But it’s a very vocal minority, which is leading to a big PR backlash against operators.

It makes sense for operators to offer generous, capped data plans, and it’s what they should have done from the start instead of overplaying their hand. Ultimately this will become much less of a problem once LTE and other 4G networks begin to roll-out – but in the meantime it is still egg in their faces.

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The iPad 3G may require a micro SIM—a lilliputian SIM card incompatible with anything else you own—but AT&T will be selling each bundled with a full SIM card adapter—meaning you could potentially use your data plan elsewhere. UPDATE:

UPDATE: Actually, a better look from BGR shows us that this seems to be a punch out scenario in which you can’t reuse the larger SIM casing once you choose to break away the Micro SIM. It’s probably just going to make stocking at AT&T easier. Luckily, given that SIM and Micro SIM have the same contacts, adapters (even homemade ones) are likely to be available soon. [BGR and Engadget]

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Apple has just updated its online store with a shipping date for the 3G-equipped variants of its iPad. As you can see, all varieties of the hallowed Apple tablet should be out and about by May 7th — meaning that some deliveries could sneak out even earlier — and you can expect AT&T will be ready and waiting for you to activate that $30 a month unlimited data plan. Just for the European record, that means the iPad will be out in full force for American consumers three days ahead of the announcement of specific international availability. Ah well, at least that gives the UK and others hope that they might see the 3G and WiFi-only slates coming out at the same time, which should be somewhere around the end of May.

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The new BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphone is now available in Bermuda from M3 Wireless and Research In Motion.

Lloyd Fray, CEO of M3 Wireless, said the phone is “an impressive handset that will certainly appeal to business users as well as consumers”.

He added: “M3 Wireless customers can take full advantage of our 3G network to get the most out of their new smartphone”.

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• BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900 caught in wild (slashgear.com)

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