No more unlimited offer from AT&T

AT&T Inc., the largest U.S. phone company, will cut wireless data-plan prices for most users next week and stop offering unlimited data plans to manage soaring demand for data-hungry devices like Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

AT&T has decided to stop its $30 a month unlimited internet plan and has reduced prices for other data plans. A 200 megabyte plan from AT&T will now cost $15 a month and a 2 gigabyte package would cost $25 a month.

According to AT&T wireless chief Ralph de la Vega, the carrier is facing congestion in New York and San Francisco as a surge in smartphone use has clogged its network. Accroding to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in New York, customers who use the Apple iPhone, sold exclusively through AT&T, consume seven times more bandwidth than regular mobile users.

AT&T's move could trigger a migration chain, in which users having high data usage could switch to Verizon that offers unlimited data.

Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, declined to comment on whether the company is planning changes to its rates.

Existing AT&T customers can keep their unlimited data plans. About 98 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 2 gigabytes of data a month, the company said.