Why file-sharing has killed 'unlimited' mobile data contracts

So the free lunch - otherwise known as the unlimited data tariff - is over. O2 said on Thursday that it will no longer be offering new or upgrading customers its "unlimited" tariff for smartphone users - principally, it's believed, the iPhone users, whose numbers connected to O2 have grown from 1m to 2m in a year. O2 isn't the first: Vodafone ended its "unlimited" offering last month, and Steve Jobs had barely sat down after delivering his WWDC speech before AT&T announced that it too was ending its "unlimited" offering, replacing it with a tiered set - $15/month for 200MB, $25/month for 2GB. Orange is expected to follow suit in the next few weeks, though when asked the company simply says that it "constantly reviews its pricing". However the noises we're hearing from parts of the company suggest that a review will see it follow O2 to dump the "unlimited" offering. Why? Because a tiny number of users are slurping huge amounts of data. And because the mass of users are demanding more and more data (though lots less than the real slurpers). There's all sorts of interesting information that we can pull out of this - especially with the help of O2's chief executive Ronan Dunne, who signed a lengthy post at the company's blog with a tortuous justification for why the company has changed its rules. The strange thing is why he hasn't come out with the simple reason - because it would make O2 a lot more popular at a stroke. He goes over the points that were made in yesterday - that 97% of O2 smartphone users use less than 500MB, and that only a tiny number use more than 1GB. (Interesting to note that Apple-watcher John Gruber, someone who I'd expect to be a heavy user, says he uses about 500MB per month. So he's clearly just one of the 97%, even if an outlier there.)

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/11/mobile-data-unlimited-end#