Kevin Kelleher, writing for ReadWriteWeb in How AT&T & Verizon Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Data Hogs about AT&T’s new pricing model, nails the conclusion in regards to the carriers in the USA:

There are two kinds of innovations in tech. One that is often celebrated – the creation of great new things people will gladly pay for – and another that few companies will brag about – finding new ways to get people to pay for something they already have. The top two carriers are innovative in the second way.

With the new plans, consumers become pure controlled revenue streams, to be sucked dry through the creation of false bandwidth scarcity using caps, higher base costs for unnecessary but mandatory features and massive overpricing of data. The future of great technology experiences depends on greater bandwidth availability and ubiquity, and lower costs, otherwise only the rich will be able to afford it. In aint gonna happen on the top two carrier’s watch if they can help it. Here’s hoping T-Mobile and Sprint remain outside this wall.

I recommend reading the referenced Verge Article headlined Five years after the iPhone, carriers are the biggest threat to innovation for more backgound on the topic.