AT&T considers charging iPhone users for high data usage

Attention iPhone owners: AT&T has heard your complaints about its sometimes-slow network.
A word of warning, though: You may not like what the company has in mind.

AT&T is mulling a new pricing plan that would force its biggest data users to pay more than others. That would be a sharp change from the company's current plan, where it charges users of Apple's iPhone and other smart phones a flat monthly rate for unlimited data usage.

The proposal, which isn't final, is a possible response to traffic patterns on AT&T's network, Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of the company's mobility and consumer division, said at an investor conference in New York on Wednesday. Just 3 percent of smart phone customers account for about 40 percent of the traffic on the company's wireless data network, he said.

"We're going to try to focus on making sure we give incentives to those small percentages to either reduce or modify their usage so they don't crowd out the other customers in those same cell sites," de la Vega said.

Soon, the company plans to send real-time updates to customers who are using excessive amounts of data, he said. But, he added, "longer term, there's got to be some sort of a pricing scheme that addresses the usage."

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