AT&T (NYSE: T) took the first step Wednesday in what could be a major transformation in how the wireless data industry prices its services: The giant telco is no longer providing an unlimited data option for new smartphone subscribers, offering tiered, usage-based pricing packages instead. Verizon and other wireless carriers are expected to follow AT&T's lead.

Additionally, AT&T announced that it soon will allow iPhone users on the new pricing plans to tether the smartphone to other devices, such as laptops, and share data among them.

A number of analysts predicted that tiered wireless data pricing could help increase smartphone adoption, and it will get subscribers accustomed to paying for the amount of data they use. The long-anticipated move to tiered pricing unleashed a tsunami of predictions in the blogosphere.

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb, noted that data-intensive applications on the horizon, like video chat and live video streaming over mobile devices, could be affected. "If it's going to be a data-intensive, mobile and real-time future--it may be time to crank up our expectations and capacity--not limit data available to consumers," he writes.

Dan Frommer at BusinessInsider took it a step further, predicting that AT&T's move may be the death knell for mobile television. The high-volume plan, which gives you 2 GB of bandwidth for $25 a month, could be depleted in less than one day of video: Once you've reached the bandwidth cap, you could end up paying an extra fee of $5 just to watch a 2-hour movie. Frommer predicts that not many people would pay that amount. 

And that may be exactly what AT&T is hoping for, writes Devindra Hardawar at VentureBeat. It's not unlikely that heavy data users will end up migrating to other carriers, she writes. The new tethering option may end up being more expensive for heavy users than the existing DataConnect laptop plan, and so that category of users should probably stick with DataConnect, she advises.

For more:
- see AT&T's announcement
- see Marshall Kirkpatrick's post at ReadWriteWeb
- see Dan Frommer's post at BusinessInsider
- see Devindra Hardawar's post at VentureBeat

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