Methinks that someone is jumping the gun. Yes, AT&T has "raised" the price of their wireless plan... but it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, since the new plan is 3G and the old one is not.
Now, if you want to argue that 3G isn't enough of an improvement to be worth the premium price, I'll hear you. I have no experience, myself, so I have no idea. I will note, though, that Apple has thoughtfully discounted the iPhone 3G to the point where the TCO over two years is within $30-$50 of what it has been. So even if 3G turns out to be nearly worthless, I'll only be paying about $3 extra per month over two years.
As for AT&T putting me over a barrel and raising their rates... I wouldn't put it past them, but it would surely be a very stupid move, calculated to ensure the loss of a double-digit percentage of their customers. And can they do that during my contract? Cell phone contracts may be drawn up by Mephistopheles and signed in blood, but they are contracts, and I'm pretty sure that threatening to unilaterally raise prices will invalidate them.
To make a complete Apples to Apples comparison we need to see if the beefed up plan pricing applies to ALL AT&T phones using the 3G capabilities or only iPhone.
What would be nicer is if we could get an iPhone for the sprint network :P
Now, if you want to argue that 3G isn't enough of an improvement to be worth the premium price, I'll hear you. I have no experience, myself, so I have no idea. I will note, though, that Apple has thoughtfully discounted the iPhone 3G to the point where the TCO over two years is within $30-$50 of what it has been. So even if 3G turns out to be nearly worthless, I'll only be paying about $3 extra per month over two years.
As for AT&T putting me over a barrel and raising their rates... I wouldn't put it past them, but it would surely be a very stupid move, calculated to ensure the loss of a double-digit percentage of their customers. And can they do that during my contract? Cell phone contracts may be drawn up by Mephistopheles and signed in blood, but they are contracts, and I'm pretty sure that threatening to unilaterally raise prices will invalidate them.