AT&T is now offering a variety of data service plans for customers who are using Apple's iPhone. These cost less than the plans for consumers, at least until the end of this year.
Prices for business plans start at $45 a month, verses $60 a month for consumers. However, this is a result of a promotion AT&T is offering, and the monthly cost of a business plan will jump up to $60 in 2009.
All the iPhone enterprise service plans include unlimited wireless data access in the U.S. and the "visual voice mail" service. The $45 a month plan entitles the user to 200 SMS messages, while a $55 plan comes with 1500 SMS messages, and a $65 plan offers unlimited text messaging.
These require the user to sign a two-year service contract, and include no discounts off the price of the smartphone.
More information is available on AT&T's web site.
Limited Business Use
AT&T has clearly been in no hurry putting together these offerings for business users; the iPhone went on sale to consumers over six months ago. The likely reason for this is this smartphone is somewhat weak in the features necessary for an enterprise-class phone.
While it allows users to view Microsoft Office files that come in as attachments, it has limited options for connecting to professional email servers like Microsoft Exchange and BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
However, there have been unconfirmed reports that support for Exchange and Lotus Notes will be added soon.