AT&T moves closer to usage-based fees for data

AT&T is moving even closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones. On Wednesday, Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets, came the closest he has so far in warning about some kind of use-based pricing. "The first thing we need to do is educate customers about what represents a megabyte of data and...we're improving systems to give them real-time information about their data usage," he said. "Longer term, there's got to be some sort of pricing scheme that addresses the [heavy] users." AT&T has found that only 3 percent of its smartphone users -- primarily iPhone owners -- are responsible for 40 percent of total data usage, largely for video and audio, de la Vega said. Educating that group about how much they are using could change that, as AT&T has found by informing wired Internet customers of such patterns.