It is now only a matter of time before users have to accept the death of all-you-can-eat deals, and AT&T and Verizon Wireless are both readying usage-based pricing schemes for this year. Both will try to pull off the difficult marketing trick of presenting these as premium quality services for high end users, rather than price rises, which will depend on associating the fees with new device formats like tablets, or networks like LTE. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was focusing on the iPad and other emerging data-driven gadgets as he outlined usage-based plans during an investor conference run by Morgan Stanley this week.

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