Sprint, with an iPhone 5 expected next week, confirms unlimited data staying put

Sprint CTO Stephen Bye confirmed Sprint's commitment, for the time being, to continue offering its unlimited data plan.

With competitors Verizon and AT&T having turned to tiered pricing, its unlimited plan is a standout feature for Sprint, which unlike Verizon and AT&T hasn't had an iPhone with which to attract new subscribers. (At a Goldman Sachs event last week, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse described a desire for the iPhone as hands-down the number-one reason that subscribers churn.)

CTO Bye, speaking at the GigaOm Mobilize conference in San Francisco, acknowledged the financial challenge of offering unlimited data, though underscored its simplicity compared to the customer care and support needs of subscribers on tiered data plans.

"Is there pressure? Yeah," Bye said, regarding the need to continue offering the unlimited plan. "There's a challenge for all engineers to work on how we get the cost structure down."

In January Sprint added a $10 fee to smartphone subscribers, as means of helping it balance the cost of its unlimited offer.

Sprint has scheduled what it's calling a "strategy update" for Oct. 7 where it's widely expected to share news of plans for a 4G LTE network — a CNET report today, unconfirmed by Sprint, suggests commercial LTE service could launch by the end of the first quarter of 2012 or beginning of the second. The upcoming availability of an iPhone 5 on the Sprint network — another topic the carrier won't publicly touch — is also expected to be on the agenda.

AT&T, which was the first to offer an iPhone and pair with an unlimited plan, in June 2010 made a long-expected move to tiered pricing, stating that a very small percentage of subscribers were using extreme amounts of data, and that 98% of users likely wouldn't see a cost increase.

Verizon, which began offering an iPhone in February, this July also ended its all-you-eat offer (Unfiltered: Verizon's new data plans: a gigabyte is a gigabyte is a gigabyte).

T-Mobile essentially did the same in April. While calling the plan unlimited — and it is, in that overage fees aren't accrued — after an established data allotment a user's service slows down. AT&T has also adopted similar throttling techniques (CP: AT&T subs holding on to their unlimited plans -- but change is coming).

For Sprint, holding on to its unlimited plan and pairing it, finally, with an iPhone, is a "no brainer," Technology Business Research analyst Ken Hyers has told Connected planet.

"Sprint's network will be able to handle the increased data traffic that the iPhone 5 will generate. And Sprint really needs the iPhone in order to compete against its larger rivals," Hyers added. "A big question will be whether unlimited data is enough to entice iPhone customers at AT&T and Verizon over to Sprint's network."