Let the wireless price wars begin

Just a few short days ago, Verizon made a surprise announcement: the company was rolling out an unlimited calling plan for $99 a month. Mere hours later, two other top-tier carriers, AT&T and T-Mobile, followed suit. While AT&T's plan matches Verizon's, T-Mobile went one step further, throwing unlimited text and instant messaging into the mix for the same $99/month price point.

The only major carrier we've yet to hear from this week is Sprint. While the company already has a $119/month "Unlimited Access Pack" (unlimited voice, text, web, email and picture mail), they're widely expected to announce an unlimited voice plan that will either meet or undercut the other carrier's plans. According to some analysts, this plan could be offered for as little as $60/month, in an attempt to win back some of the subscribers that Sprint lost over the course of the last year. And if that happens, you can be sure that the other carriers will soon find themselves feeling the pressure.

Ultimately, these sorts of plans could really benefit businesses. Enterprises can now pay a flat fee for a user's line, without having to worry about that user going over his or her limit of allotted monthly minutes. This could really help enterprises with especially chatty users better manage their costs--something that even folks on the business side should be able to appreciate.

For more on this week's price war:
- see this FierceWireless article
- and this Engadget article on the Sprint rumor