Two ways to look at AT&T

AT&T Inc.'s plan to change the way it bills wireless phone customers for data is attracting a lot of attention among bloggers. On Wednesday, the U.S. telecom company announced that it would end unlimited data use, driving up costs for so-called data hogs, but lowering costs for the vast majority of smartphone users who don't consume a lot of data.

Felix Salmon at Reuters went so far as to call AT&T's new plan "evil" because it forces consumers to make one of three choices on data use ahead of time, then punishes them financially if they consume more data than they thought they would need.

He puts it this way: "Whatever they choose is quite likely to be the wrong choice, and AT&T will chortle as it collects all that extra money which its customers didn't need to pay."

From a consumer's perspective, Mr. Salmon is probably right. And he makes a very good point that what AT&T advertises as average data use is deceptive: The average smoothes out the bumps - and those bumps could cost you if your monthly data use occasionally spikes above what your plan allows.

However, Mr. Salmon clearly has the consumer in mind here, and not the prospective AT&T investor. If he's right about customers paying more for data, then AT&T would presumably generate more revenue from this new plan, assuming of course that customers don't migrate elsewhere (most observers believe that other telecom companies will adopt similar plans).

That would be good news for the stock. So far, though, analysts haven't exactly embraced the new plan as a reason to buy AT&T. According to Bloomberg News, the 10 analysts who have issued reports on Wednesday and Thursday have maintained their earlier recommendations and target prices.

Meanwhile, Megan McArdle at The Atlantic points out that the changes can't be good news for Apple Inc. - or at least iPad users, of which there are now two million.

"[AT&T's plan]just made the iPad a much less attractive value proposition," she said. "I assume that Apple knew about this, but they can't be happy. Presumably, they had a hand in influencing the timing in order to maximize their sales push before the new rules go into effect."