Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Mark your calendar. Today is the day Verizon ends unlimited data plans, putting a nail in the coffin of all-things all-the-time mobile. Eventually all carriers will follow this model as they are all addicted to charge-per-minute plans, so why not charge per bit downloaded, so their thinking goes.

Governing minutes or data, it is the way pipe providers, and unlimited plans are completely counter to their business soul. But ending unlimited plans on AT&T, and now Verizon, it's an Omen of things to come from every data provider, mobile or not. The capping of data is rapidly extending into homes via cable and fiber internet providers. This shouldn't shock anyone. All of these players were spawned from the world of telecommunications, thus the game is the same across the board. How they can extract every cent from our wallets will seemingly never end. However, there is one white knight that has the cash and cajones to change the game – Apple.

Bypassing your cable TV and your local phone provider by moving to a pure internet-only plan is a smart play. But this won't be an effective move in years to come. Regardless of the packages promoted, cable providers use the slow-cook method, until subscribers are forking over $75+ for whatever services they are using: cable TV, overpriced VOIP phone services or internet-only access the prices end up soaring. The action to force users into a bundle by pricing individual services to the moon is getting worse. Capping data is the other method used to ensure their cable TV packages continue to sell.

Cable providers claim the capping of plans (Comcast currently caps downloads at 250GB per month) is only to stop bandwidth hogs, but would someone other than cable companies please define what a "bandwidth hog" is? Carriers are likely to look at bandwidth hogs as anyone who is choosing to usurp their bundles, gaining access to all their content via the internet. A ghastly concept for cable providers, but a solution that makes perfect sense for the consumer. Again, Apple is the one player that could shatter this upside down business model.

This all begs the question; Why can't Apple get into the mix and change the game they way they did with music sales? Apple's methodology of selling music via iTunes al-a-carte was completely counter to the bundled album. Apple had a unique situation where music labels were desperate for an alternative to online music theft, and Apple was the cure. In the current mobile device and home markets, it's consumers who are desperate to have a company deliver mobile data plans and home internet access without being shoved into long-term contracts, or buried in costs and bundles. 

The answer is simple. Apple has the means to acquire a carrier or cable provider and turn the game upside down. Instead of tying data to one device, Apple could offer truly unlimited data plans, where any Apple device can pull from the one plan. Why should the data package you purchase be tied to only one device?... Two-year contracts could turn into month-to-month, and the games Apple could play in turning these industries upside down are endless. 

But to be fair, the question I offered is flawed. It isn't about whether Apple can or can't, the question should be: Why won't Apple buy a carrier or cable provider? As much as Apple could use their cash for these purposes, Apple has chosen a different path for their wallet. Apple's become a hardware monopsonist, and Phillip Elmer-DeWitt has a great piece on how Apple plays this game, here.

Apple's choosen to leverage their abilities (and cash), within their supply chain, not in the delivery of data to the consumer. Fine, I get it, but here's to hoping that once Apple's maxed out it's economies of scale for tablet and phone devices and dives into the HDTV business, they'll begin focusing on how to deliver al-a-carte purchasing for networks, or take on a carrier to deliver mobile plans that actually make sense to the user, saving us from the record labels.... errrr, telco's!

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