Get Ready to Be Gouged, Verizon Plans on Tiered 4G Data Pricing

We were a little worried that the change over to 4G mobile data standards like LTE and WiMAX would get expensive for consumers. ON the heels of Sprint's announcement that users of the EVO 4G would have to pay a $10 premium for data, Verizon is talking about a tiered pricing model for LTE data when it launches. Instead of allowing "unlimited" plans (5GB data cap), Big Red may instead charge different fees based on the amount of data used.

This might be a good deal for people that only use a little data, but in the future with much faster data connections, who's only going to use a little data? The thing to be aware of is that LTE data networks are expected to be much more efficient at delivering data. Carriers may only incur a half or one-third of the costs per megabyte of data on LTE as they do now. All things considered, we'd be surprised if even the cheap plans are a good deal.

Of course, we won't know how bad of a deal we're getting until LTE rolls out. Verizon is expecting the first round of LTE handsets to be available in early 2011. These will be LTE for data only, much like the EVO 4G uses WiMAX only for data. Verizon expects to be using LTE for voice calls by 2012. How much wireless data do you use in a month? Would you like a tiered pricing structure?

The 20 Most Important Moments in Mobile Phone History

Our lives are increasingly mobile and our cell phones are not only a way to contact anyone, anytime, anywhere but also our calendars, cameras, photo albums, inboxes, maps, weather reports, dictionaries, and entertainment. Payphones are disappearing as business users edit documents on their Blackberries, kids text each other furiously in class instead of passing notes and celebrities partner with handset manufacturers. We take our cell phones for granted now but it wasn't that long ago that a cell phone was much like a snow leopard - rare, expensive and exotic. So what happened? What were the technologies that really changed the playing field for mobile? How have our systems of communication changed over the past three decades?

Let us take you on a tour of the most noteworthy mobile moments - from telecomm inventions to handset debuts to appearances in popular culture, we've found the top 20 Moments in Mobile Phone History. From must-have handsets to advancements that moved mobile forward, we're hightlighting watershed occassions, developments and adaptations that made mobile phones an indispensible addition to our lives.