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AT&T baffles observers; sells GSM data to home users, not business

Wireless data over GSM phones isn't cheap; and most pioneers of GPRS data have accordingly targeted business users. AT&T Wireless in the US, however, has decided to go for the consumer with its mMode data service launched this week.

The scoop was picked up by Information Week which made it clear that AT&T is making few concessions to pricing in its attempt to attract the private user.

"The first plan, Mini, is $2.99 a month plus 2 cents for every kilobyte of data transmitted," reported John Rendleman. "The second, Mega, is $7.99 a month, which covers 1 Mbyte of transmitted data, with additional kilobytes billed at 1 cent each. The third plan, Max, is $12.49 a month and includes 2 Mbytes of data, with additional kilobytes costing 1 cent each."

One cent per kilobyte doesn't sound expensive, of course; until you realise this is a dollar a megabyte. It's cheap only if the users restrict themselves to downloading small images suitable for viewing on the phones. As soon as you use the phone to connect to a larger display device such as a PDA (like the Palm Pilot or the iPaq for example) it's all too easy to start racking up big bills.

Confusingly, says Rendleman, the applications AT&T has provided are very business oriented: "With mMode, users can synchronize their cell phones with their desktop E-mail, contacts, and calendars, including Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes, as well as all other major messaging and personal-information-management products," - features which might be useful to busy execs, he notes," although the service is primarily intended for consumers."