Unless you own Sprint’s premiere smartphones — the Evo 4G and the Epic, get out your wallet — Sprint is increasing the price on its unlimited data plan by $10, effective later this month.

Evo and Epic owners already pay the $10 “premium data” fee that will be extended to all smartphone customers Jan. 30 (customers on existing contracts will not be affected).

The reason for the price increase?  Heavy usage on its wireless network, which partly includes Virgin Mobile (ending its unlimited service Feb. 14) and Clearwire, which heavily throttles speeds of customers deemed to be “using too much.”

Chief executive Dan Hesse says Sprint will retain its unlimited service plans, which the company calls the best value in the wireless industry.  But the pricing change will present minor challenges as Sprint markets themselves as the least costly.

Sprint's marketing focuses on its unlimited use offers, some of which are about to get more expensive.

Sprint’s “Everything Data” plan, which also includes unlimited cell-to-cell calls will now cost $79.99 per month.  Comparable plans from T-Mobile are priced at $99.99 for that company’s 4G network and $119.98 on Verizon Wireless’ slower, but more ubiquitous 3G network.

“Sprint has been the price leader in the market,” said Jennifer Fritzsche, a Wells Fargo & Co. analyst in Chicago who has an “outperform” rating on the stock. “Sprint may be more confident in the pricing power it has with customers.”

The Wall Street Journal also shares positive views of the price increase from Wall Street:

Wall Street applauded the move, with many seeing it as a sign of pricing power returning to the wireless industry. “It is more likely that Sprint believes that consumers value unlimited and that they can get away with higher pricing,” said Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst at Credit Suisse.

The price hike also suggests that Sprint has seen stronger smartphone growth over the past three months, he added, noting that the carrier likely wouldn’t have made the change if it were still concerned about stabilizing its base on contract customers.

But some other analysts are less impressed with Sprint, especially because of challenges the company faces with its Clearwire partnership.

Patrick Comack from Zachary Investment Research has downgraded Sprint stock, particularly because of technology issues Clearwire faces.

Comack told CNBC Clearwire is stuck with defective spectrum for much of its wireless broadband service.

“It can’t penetrate walls,” Comack said, noting most Clearwire customers are trying to use wireless broadband in the 2GHz range, which presents plenty of problems from obstacles between the tower and the customer.

Comack also believes Sprint’s network simply cannot compete with Verizon Wireless, which he suspects could pick up a number of Sprint customers once it fully activates its 4G network nationwide.

Verizon Wireless network delivers significantly better coverage than Sprint, which focuses on urban and suburban markets, and the major highways that connect them.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Sprint 1-12-11.flv[/flv]

CNBC: Debating Sprint and Clearwire, with Todd Rethemeier, Hudson Square Research and Patrick Comack Zachary Investment Research.  (6 minutes)

(Thanks to Stop the Cap! reader PreventCAPS for sharing the news.)

Verizon Wireless has seen some success getting their off-contract customers who have stubbornly refused to upgrade their phones to jump on board the smartphone craze… by lowering their prices.

The entry fee for smartphones on most carriers includes the up front cost of the device (often $199 for the most coveted phones) and a $30 monthly mandatory data plan.  That’s a price too high for many consumers to pay in this economy, and the result has been an increase in the number of customers letting their two-year contracts expire.

AT&T has tried to reduce the bite with a paltry $15 monthly plan that only includes 200MB of usage per month, which is nearly pointless for smartphone users who want to really use the multimedia features the phones were designed to provide. Verizon responded with a holiday season promotional offer charging $15 a month for an even lower 150MB per month, with widespread speculation the “limited time only” part of the offer will soon become “available every day.”

But for most smartphone customers who plan to regularly use data-hungry applications, neither “budget plan” will suffice.  That leaves one alternative for Verizon customers — the $29.99 unlimited plan.  Ouch.

To prod price-sensitive customers, Verizon has offered family plan members the option of upgrading their old phones to new smartphones, and has sweetened the deal with a $10 price break.  While technically a credit on the “additional line” charge, some Verizon employees pitch the discount as a reduction in price for the mandatory data plan.  Where $30 a month sounds obscene, $20 a month sounds somewhat better.

The offer has proven sufficiently successful that Verizon has now extended it until Jan. 30 (note just prior to next month’s iPhone introduction) and any customer who has not upgraded their phone in the last 180 days qualifies.  A new, two year contract is required and the offer is good if you want to add a new secondary line.

Unfortunately, the offer does not extend to the primary line.  Verizon would probably see an even larger number of upgrades if the offer extended to every legacy phone on a customer’s account.

The $9.99 credit applies for 24 months.  Over the life of the contract, that is worth $240 in savings per smartphone, which isn’t bad from America’s Cadillac wireless carrier.

AT&T claims every family should have access on the go, which is why they are “introducing” Smartphone data plans for the family.  Only one problem.  There is nothing new about the data plan, which still starts at $15 per month, per line, for up to 200MB of usage.

AT&T changed the plan’s name, but left the same high price in place.  An Internet Overcharging scheme is still an Internet Overcharging scheme no matter how a wireless company pitches it.

The plan, which throws in AT&T Wi-Fi, which customers can also already get, “is designed for families that primarily surf the web, send and receive personal email and visit social networking sites,” says AT&T spokeswoman Mari Melguizo.

But a real data plan for families would let every user on the account share from one data plan, billed once on the account, not per phone.  That’s not on offer from AT&T, although analysts predict the next wave of smartphone upgrades will come only when data pricing comes down, especially on accounts with multiple phones.

[flv width=”480″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/ATT Family Smartphone Data Plan Ad.flv[/flv]

AT&T’s new ad for the same old, overpriced product.  (1 minute)

Life's for sharing... just not on our wireless network.

British T-Mobile wireless broadband users got — how shall we put it — an “abrupt” and uncharacteristically rude notice about a change in the company’s “Fair Use” policy that takes effect in February (underlining ours):

Browsing means looking at websites and checking email, but not watching videos, downloading files or playing games. We’ve got a fair use policy but ours means that you’ll always be able to browse the internet, it’s only when you go over the fair use amount that you won’t be able to download, stream and watch video clips.

So what’s changing? – From 1st February 2011 we will be aligning our fair use policies so our mobile internet service will have fair use of 500MB.

What does this mean? – We’ll always let you email and browse the internet and you’ll never pay more than you agree to. We do have a fair use policy but ours is there to make sure we deliver the best service possible to all our customers.  This means that you’ll always be able to browse the internet.

So remember our Mobile Broadband and internet on your phone service is best used for browsing which means looking at your favorite websites like Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, BBC News and more, checking your email and looking for information, but not watching videos or downloading files.

If you want to download, stream and watch video clips, save that stuff for your home broadband.

T-Mobile's warning to customers to avoid watching videos on their network flies in the face of their own smartphone promotions.

As our regular reader “Jr” observes, broadband carriers want customers to use their broadband connections to browse web pages and read e-mail — and little else.  Rarely has a carrier come right out and said it, though.

Not only has T-Mobile “aligned” their fair use policies to deliver you less service (down from 1-3GB per month), but they’ve kept the same high price.  T-Mobile is the same company that routinely markets smartphones and other multimedia-equipped handsets specifically for the services they don’t want you to use on their network.

T-Mobile illustrates once again how Internet Overcharging schemes really work:

1. They implement a usage cap and suggest it is “generous” and that the majority of customers will never come close to hitting it;
2. They gradually reduce the usage allowance when revenue needs eclipse the needs of customers;
3. They still claim the new, lower limit is still “generous.”
4. They suggest almost nobody is likely going to hit the limit, no matter what it is.

Of course, had T-Mobile customers really come nowhere near the old limits, what problem was resolved lowering it?  T-Mobile claims the vast majority of customers don’t exceed 200MB of usage per month, an exceptionally low amount in comparison to other carriers.

The telecoms regulator Ofcom told ZDNet UK on Monday that, “if consumers are being notified of a change likely to cause them material detriment, the provider must give the customer one month’s notice of the change, and at the same time they must also inform the customer of their right to terminate their contract without penalty if the proposed change is not acceptable to the customer”.

As the changes take effect from 1 February, T-Mobile has given less than one month’s notice.

“We encourage unhappy consumers to speak with their provider about their concerns,” Ofcom’s spokesperson said. “If the problem relates to a particular term or condition that you feel is unfair, then you can log your complaint with Ofcom. We monitor complaints about the behaviour of communications providers and if there is a high volume of complaints about a particular issue, we do investigate and take action as required.”

(Thanks to our reader “PreventCAPS” for sharing the story with us.)

It’s official.  Verizon Wireless will welcome Apple’s iPhone to its network next month, but in a glaring omission, company officials refused to discuss data pricing for the all-important data plans that will power the wildly popular smartphone.

The official announcement of the iPhone on Verizon came late this morning in New York at a press event hosted by Verizon’s president Lowell McAdam.  Joining him was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer. Neither Steve Jobs or Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg were on hand for the event.

“Late in 2010 we started offering the Apple iPad and today we are extremely gratified to announce that the iPhone 4 will be available early next month,” MacAdam said. “Our relationship with Apple has developed over the last two years. Back in 2008 we started talking about bringing the iPhone to a CDMA network, and we spent a year testing.”

“All of Apple is very excited to bring the iPhone to Verizon’s customers,” added Cook.

The new phone will be available for pre-orders, exclusively for existing Verizon Wireless customers Feb. 3.  A week later, anyone can reserve the Verizon iPhone at Verizon Wireless or Apple stores, or online.  The new phones will cost $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model with a new two year contract.  The phones will work on Verizon’s 3G network, but not on their new LTE/4G network.

Verizon is so confident its network can handle the traffic, it is bundling, for free, a mobile hotspot with the phone that will allow up to five devices to share the iPhone’s 3G connection over Wi-Fi.  That means you can use a laptop or home computer with a wireless card and connect to Verizon’s 3G wireless broadband service without any additional equipment.

But Verizon’s press event left some questions unanswered, starting with whether the company would sell unlimited data plans to accompany the phone.

“We talked about the device pricing, but we’re not going to talk about the pricing for the network for that connectivity,” Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead said. “We’ll have announcements in the future.”

Another downside: the Verizon iPhone will not be able to multitask.  If you make or receive calls on your phone, your data connection is suspended for the length of the call.  This is common on CDMA cellular networks, and it currently affects other smartphones used on Verizon’s network as well.

As far as Apple sees it, that isn’t much of a problem so long as the phone works on Verizon’s network.

“I can tell you that the number one question I’ve gotten is when will the iPhone work on Verizon,” said Cook. “I couldn’t be happier to tell people that. They will make those sorts of trade-offs.”

[flv width=”576″ height=”344″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/AP Verizon to Start Selling iPhone Early Feb 1-11-11.flv[/flv]

Lowell McAdam makes the official announcement.  (2 minutes)