AT&T Alters Pricing In Wake of Verizon Announcement

I don't know AT&Ts stance, but it's another fancy way of forcing stuff on customers. Sprint has been considering this too.

Essentially, "why buy a phone with a full keyboard and not text? Most people wouldn't own one unless they actually used text messaging often enough to have a QWERTY keyboard, right? So lets make everyone who buys one have this package/plan, yeah!"

But in the long run it's just like requiring data on a smartphone and the mentality of "Why have a smart phone without data?" Well there are *lots* of WIFI hotspots around now-a-days, much more than previously. Hell, I can't go into a bar without getting WIFI. So, though I am kind of biased since I work for a celltelco now, I know that you don't have to have a data package to be able to use the web effectively on a mobile device. For the same reason that someone might want a full keyboard to better use the calendar function, or for making writing memos on their phone easier.