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In what is an apparent response to Verizon’s price cuts (as opposed to an act of customer good will), AT&T will offer their unlimited voice and data plans for $99.99 per month starting Monday January 18th, 2010.  The unlimited plan does not include text messaging, but is available for AT&T phones, including the iPhone.

Family Talk plans have also dropped down to almost sane prices at $179.99 a month. Texting plan prices have not dropped or been included, so you’ll still need to shell out an extra $20 a month for individual plans or $30 for Family Talk Plans, which is just ridiculous. I can’t imagine any real reason why texting needs to cost so much. If you can stream internet radio to your phone all month long at no extra charge, why-oh-why do they need to charge for texting separately? Since there’s really no practical alternative, I’m forced to believe they just want to steal your money from you.

These plans are available at AT&T wireless and do not require current users to sign a new contract. There’s no current word on pricing for non-unlimited plans.

I think it’s interesting that AT&T finally lowered their unlimited plans to almost match Sprint. Sprint’s plan actually includes text messaging, but it’s not really a big surprise for AT&T to still be playing catch up with other carriers. After all, they have iPhone exclusivity, why drop prices? Or do they know something? Is AT&T finally making their prices competitive so that they don’t lose all of their iPhone customers to a possible Verizon iPhone?

It’s hard to say. And the more I think about it, it’s becoming a tougher call as to whether I’d jump boat to Verizon if they get the iPhone as well. After all, you can’t call and use the Internet at the same time on any of Verizon’s current networks; CDMA just doesn’t support it. But then again, every time I interact with AT&T, I get the feeling they couldn’t care less about any of their customers.

Via [Yahoo Finance]