I keep up with technology, but I’m usually a little late to enter the market on gadgets. I usually prefer to wait to see what kind of devices spring up from competition. In this case, I’m waiting on the Android Hero from Sprint (low cost) instead of jumping onto the iPhone and being forced into a contract with AT&T. Turns out, they may be happy at least one high bandwidth user didn’t sign up with them.
In addition to these issues, Strand Consult also notes that the iPhone only attracts a limited market segment and one in which customers already were heavy data users…so they’re not actually bringing in that much new revenue via their iPhone data plans. Meanwhile, flat rate data plans mean that the “high data consumption results in high production costs without the corresponding increased revenue.”