Are Unlimited Calling Plans a Bargain or an Up-Sell?

I love it when big companies vie for first place. You know who the winner is, don't you? That would be us.

The latest buzzword in mobile phone-speak is unlimited calling. The first salvo came from Verizon Wireless earlier in the week. It introduced an unlimited calling plan for $99.99 a month. On the plan, you get unlimited minutes, no domestic roaming or long distance charges, and mobile Web 2.0. (This doesn't include surcharges, taxes, and fees or activation fees.)

Within hours, AT&T Mobility offered its version of the $99 unlimited plan. For the moment, Sprint's unlimited plan remains at $119.99 a month, but it includes unlimited web use, email, and messaging. The company has not announced a price, cut but the week's still young. Engadget is already hot on the rumor trail about a $60 a month unlimited calling option from Sprint.

And T-Mobile USA also announced its price-cutting week, too. For $99, it offers unlimited nationwide calling, but ups the ante by adding unlimited messaging, including text messages (SMS), picture messages (MMS), and instant messages (IM).

Is $99 for unlimited calling right for you? Possibly not. The carriers can substantially increase their revenue by upselling you to a more expensive plan than you need in the name of "unlimited." You know the sales speak: "For just a few dollars more a month than you're already spending you can have unlimited use."

BusinessWeek quoted a communications and media consultancy practice, that reported only 5 percent to 15 percent of the combined customer base of the three of the four largest U.S. cell-phone service providers would probably save by converting to the all-you-can-talk calling plans.

If you're in the 5 percent to 15 percent, then hooray for you! If you're not, you might be spending more than you need to spend. Before you sign on the dotted line, do an inventory of a few months of bills. My hunch is that most of the people who will benefit from the new $99 unlimited game are those who are either always over their minute limits or already pay $99 for a fixed number of minutes. In other words, heavy volume callers.

If you're paying $39 a month and stay within your minutes, there's not a lot of reason for the "unlimited" word to lure you.