Generally speaking when I start reading something about metered billing my first instinct is always to think, “Whoa! Don’t touch my internetz!”  But after the initial shock wears off it always seems reasonable to me.  Consider the public outcry when Time Warner looked into metered billing this time last year.  There is a possibility here that many folks didn’t even understand what Time Warner was offering.  Especially since we don’t see the same type of outcry with cell phones for example.  Though arguably, getting X number of minutes per month for Y amount of dollars is probably more readily understood than X amount of bits for Y amount of dollars.  Someone can easily track their minutes, but knowing how many bits you’ve downloaded gets a little more tricky.  There are, however, applications that will monitor your traffic, and as other ISP’s offer services like Comcast’s Data Usage Meter end users will have a less difficult time keeping up with their usage.

But back to the case at hand, I am of the personal opinion that if most Internet users knew that they were using less than 5GB a month, and a company offered them the option of staying at say $50/month with no cap or $15/month with a 5GB cap, most individuals would probably take the $15 option and take the risk of paying an overage fee.  This same mind set happens when we purchase cell phone plans every day.

So when AT&T announced their new data plan, and the initial shock wore off, as an AT&T subscriber myself, I thought I’d do a little investigating into my data usage to see how this would affect me before I started Tweeting obscenities that would most likely come back to haunt me.  (I will confess I was inspired to check into this by Scott McNulty @blankbaby, Chief Blogger at Comcast.)

So looking at the new plans from AT&T someone in my position basically has three options:

• DataPlus: $15/month for 200MB
• DataPro: $25/month for 2GB
• Unlimited: $30/month for 5GB “soft cap”

Seeing the new plans prior to looking at my data usage I just automatically figured that these options were not even in the realm of possibility for me as I feel like I use my phone quite a bit for data type apps.  But I was pleasantly surprised when I actually found my usage chart:

Seven months was as far back as I could get the usage meter to check, but that gives us enough information for a pretty good trend.  As you can see, apart from our outlier (More on that later.), I never broke 200MB’s once until May.  In fact, I wasn’t even close to breaking 200MB.  Suddenly a $15/month 200MB data plan sounds very enticing!

So how am I using my phone so much and staying so low on my data usage?  Most of you probably already know the answer.  I work from home, so the majority of the day my iPhone is connected to my wireless router.  I suspect that many of you are also in the same boat and either have WiFi access at home or work.  So the only time I am really racking up data usage is on the go. But even when considering that, think about the readily available WiFi access around town.  Most of my favorite watering holes, restaurants, coffee stops, and even my gym have WiFi.  When you really consider it, free WiFi is available practically everywhere these days which helps limit your data usage.  So at least in my case, I would be giving AT&T a free $15/month to stay on the “unlimited” plan.  Accept for that month of May…

When I first saw my chart I was slightly perplexed, but then it quickly began to make sense.  May is the month I discovered myTown.  (Yes, I am that guy.)  If you aren’t familiar with myTown, it is a location based game on the iPhone that is sort of part geolocater, part RPG, and part real life Monopoly and SimCity.  When you go somewhere in your real life city, you check in at that location and get points, you can purchase the virtual equivalent of that location, and when other people in your town playing the game check in there you earn rent. Check ins earn you points to level up, rent earns you money to upgrade your virtual properties.  It is very addicting.

What you may not know about the iPhone is that it uses your 3G connection in combination with your GPS antenna to negotiate your location on a map.  myTown is a location based game.  Meaning that every time I pulled out my iPhone in May to check into the game I was racking up data charges.  And being that the game is played on the go, you’re most likely not connected to WiFi the majority of the time.  Which is why my data usage spiked by 3x the mean of the previous 6 months.

So my ultimate decision is whether I could survive without myTown to save $15/month.  Another option could be to go for the 2GB plan and save $5/month. But then ultimately aren’t I just paying a $10/month access fee to play myTown since it is what is pushing me over that 200MB limit?  Decisions, decisions…

In conclusion, I think this is another win for metered billing.  Metered billing is not always going to be great in every situation, and it will not work for everyone.  But it absolutely will have its uses and its benefits.  And the option should exist.  Someone in a similar position as me that could easily use under 200MB/month could save $180/year which can be very helpful, especially in a down economy.  It is somewhat upsetting that AT&T is not keeping the “unlimited” plan along with the two new options.  Of course if you are already on this plan, you can keep it.  But if you come off of it, you can’t get it back.  So choose wisely!  In my humble opinion this should be a big win for AT&T customers.