Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said at a talk yesterday that he believes AT&T will begin offering the iPhone to customers who wish to forgo a data plan. This is a more radical idea than the previous speculation that AT&T would offer a reduced data plan for iPhone, and as of now, that seems a little crazy. AT&T will start charging customers for a data plan if they detect that an iPhone is being used on their network without one. But allowing customers to use iPhones on the network without a dataplan would not only move more iPhones, but it would create a whole new pack of users who would eventually be paying for a more expensive monthly contract.
AT&T right now is capitalizing on the iPhone’s popularity and coolness, which for most consumers, is a function of the handset rather than the network that enables the handset. A big deterrent for a lot of more average consumers is the idea of having to pay close to $100 a month for a mobile. Once one of these people gets his hands on an iPhone, the added benefits of having data available will become quite obvious. Even beyond being unable to use Twitter applications from anywhere, this new breed of iPhone customers is going to see programs built into the iPhone such as Maps YouTube, and he will wish he had this functionality available to him anywhere.
