Cell Costs Drop for Small Business, Smartphone Soccer Moms

AT&T and Verizon Wireless introduced plans to cut costs today: AT&T lets small business pool their minutes and lines; Verizon offers smartphone features with a lower monthly rate for consumers.

The cell carriers continue their rush to the bottom, as the long-awaited real competition emerges for customers. AT&T introduced a new calling plan designed for small businesses that lets them pool their employees' phones and minutes, while Verizon Wireless dropped the price of smartphone use for those without an enterprise behind them.The AT&T plan, calledBusinessTalk, ports their family plan (cleverly named FamilyTalk) for small business use. Businesses can start with five users and 700 minutes at $60 per month, which is an incredibly low entry point. The BusinessTalk plan tops out at $1,075 per month with 40 users and 20,000 minutes. There are 10 plan levels with gradations of cost and service, and lines can be added for $9.99 per month (up to a total of 40 users) without increasing the minute pool, too. Extra minutes are 45 cents a piece for the low-end plans and 25 cents a pop at the high end.BusinessTalk includes either unlimited Push to Talk (the walkie-talkie style intra-group communication) or Mobile to Mobile (calling other AT&T wireless lines) at no extra charge. Both services can be had, however, for $9.99 per month extra per user.For many small businesses, this could be a huge savings over having to either reimburse people for their individual phone usage or plans, or having a variety of separate plans. Because each calling plan tends to start at $40 to $60, and heavy callers have to have big minute pools each month to avoid excessive charges. AT&T and other carriers have now capped the heaviest callers by offering all-inclusive unlimited voice plans for $100 per month, but this pooled-minutes service for small businesses should provide a more flexible way to keep costs down. Verizon, by contrast, dropped the price on service plans for several smartphones it offers, in order to better target consumers--"multi-tasking moms" as Verizon patronizingly notes in their press release's lead-in. (Dads either are naturally expected to multi-task, or are too busy wearing three-piece suits while golfing and drinking martinis to pay attention to a smartphone in this 1950s worldview.) The newE-mail and Web for Smartphone planis $29.99 (with a minimum voice plan), a drop from the nearly $45 per month charged for enterprise email plus unlimited smartphone email and browsing. The service includes access to as many as 10 email accounts at major online provides like Yahoo, AOL, Windows Live, and, of course, Verizon, but no access to Exchange servers. (That's what they're saying, but I have yet to see the interface; Exchange servers' email can often be accessed through a stripped-down mail client without the enterprise messaging/directory richness.)Verizon is initially offering the SMT5800, XV6800 and MOTO Q9m. They already have a similar offering for Blackberrys, but I would be hard pressed to find someone without a corporation behind them that would be that interested in Blackberry features.