AT&T has gotten beat up recently on Verizon Wireless commercials that tout a larger 3G footprint. The company has also had difficulty meeting the demand of data hungry smartphones, in particular the iPhone.

AT&T's head of consumer services, Ralph De La Vega indicated that 3 percent of data users account for 40 percent of the data usage. In the realm of mobile data unlimited usage means unlimited until you reach the limit. For the major carriers that around 5GB a month.

It's been predicted that data usage will increase 20 times over the next 4 years. What we'll probably end up seeing is a tiered approach. Currently carriers have lower cost monthly plans, but they are usually for a ridiculously low amount that any regular data user would easily exceed.

AT&T is working on a way of addressing the high volume users. It will be interesting to find out what they come up with.

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AT&T Threatens To Penalize Heavy iPhone Data Users
(NewsFactor) - NewsFactor - In the aftermath of a bruising advertising battle with Verizon Wireless that highlighted the limitations of AT&T's 3G network, an AT&T executive told investors that high-bandwidth iPhone users could face higher usage charges. Ralph de la Vega, AT&T's head of consumer services, told investors at a UBS conference in New York that people who consume a large amount of data would receive incentives to "reduce or modify their usage," the Associated Press reported. [Personal Technology News]