THE UNLIMITED BATTLE: VZW and AT&T both intro bottomless calling for $100 a month

AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless have both announced new unlimited nationwide calling plans for $100 a month. The plans give customers unlimited calls to wireless and landline phones with no roaming or long-distance charges. Verizon Wireless’ new offering is available now while AT&T’s will be available Feb. 22.
Carriers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) are slowly gathering around the idea of unlimited plans. Boost Mobile and Helio L.L.C. each separately tweaked their unlimited plans earlier this month.
However, Sprint Nextel Corp. came out of the unlimited gate a year ago, offering one of the industry’s first unlimited plans from a national carrier as a trial offering in San Francisco. The No. 3 carrier expanded the offering to Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Tampa, Fla., in May 2007. The plan includes unlimited voice calling, text messaging, data, e-mail and picture messaging for $120 per month.
Sprint Nextel said it’s trying to gauge consumer interest in unlimited plans by selecting key markets in which to test the offering.
For its part, Verizon Wireless also announced some changes to its data plans that will take effect March 2. The carrier’s new BroadbandAccess Plans will be available at 50 megabytes or five gigabytes per month. The smaller plan will sell for $40 per month while the large data plan will price at $60 per month.