Regional Carrier U.S. Cellular Now Eyeing Tiered Data Plans

After national wireless carriers AT&T and Verizon Wireless had changed to tiered data plans from unlimited smartphone data, it appears that U.S. Cellular will be migrating to the same data plan pricing and offer. In its recent earnings call, regional carrier U.S. Cellular CEO Mary Dillon said that her wireless company will be moving to tiered data plans in the next two to three quarters, but did not elaborate on details.

With AT&T and Verizon already limiting users and charging them by the appropriate data buckets, and T-Mobile USA capping data speeds beyond a pre-purchased high speed bucket (though you won’t be paying for overages), Sprint remains the lone carrier in the U.S. to truly offer unlimited data without throttling.

The move by U.S. Cellular, as a smaller, regional carrier, to switch to tiered data plans suggest that the wireless market is fiercely competitive. Rather than continue to offer unlimited as a differentiating factor against its larger national rivals, U.S. Cellular is following its rivals in migrating to tiered plans even in the face of subscriber loss and turnover in the most recent quarter.

It’s unclear how long Sprint could hold out and offer unlimited data when its rivals are all moving towards tiered or throttled plans.

Via: Fierce Wireless