The great wireless price war of 2008 continues. The latest salvo from Sprint: A new plan, called Simply Everything, offers unlimited voice, data, SMS, email, Web, music, TV, and Nextel's push-to-talk feature — for $99. The other providers charge between $140 and $150 a month for all that stuff. An AT&T spokesman told us "we will review Sprint's offer against what our customers have told us they want and we will continue to evaluate the marketplace as we always do." Hopefully that means I can hook AT&T's version of this bad boy up with my iPhone by the end of the week — but I'm not holding my breath. (Photo by AP/Robert F. Bukaty)

AT&T is Apple's exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone because AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson let Steve Jobs have his way on pricing plans when other carriers would not. AT&T also pays Apple $18 a month per iPhone. So what has all that flexibility bought? An exclusive deal through 2012. But after that, no promises. Yesterday Apple's Tim Cook told Goldman Sachs investors the one-carrier model may not be around much longer."We're not married to any business model," Cook explained. "What we're married to is shipping the best phones in the world." And the carriers? They're just girlfriends. (Photo by andycarvin)

As I read the press release from AT&T announcing its new $99/mo. all-you-can-talk voice plan, I noticed the language implies that new iPhone customers can sign up for the new unlimited plan without the standard two-year iPhone contract.

The great cell-phone price war of 2008 has begun. Almost 2 weeks ago, Sprint introduced a $119 unlimited voice plan in four markets (including San Francisco). Today, both Verizon and AT&T have rolled out $99 all-you-can-talk voice plans nationally, with Verizon introducing a less-than-spectacular new EVDO data plan.

Like every growing hipster, I'm painfully transitioning from my local indie grubby cafe to Starbucks, because dammit I just want a clean table and no one asking me for money and maybe an egg nog latte in December. I also want a cafe without a mob of laptop zombies typing with headphones on, creating a completely silent cafe and making me feel like I must whisper my order. So I'm not happy that in its upcoming switch from T-Mobile to AT&T, Starbucks is dropping the price of wifi from $10 a day to one $5 payment for the rest of your life.

AT&T is replacing T-Mobile as the Wi-Fi provider at 7,000 Starbucks locations in the U.S., starting in the spring. Even better? Customers who pay with a Starbucks gift card get two hours of free Wi-Fi. Now, I could tell you how this benefits iPhone sales, or takes pressure off AT&T's overcrowded cell-phone networks, but I'm more concerned about how many more people are going to be leeching free Internet at my local Starbucks.

VC blogger Fred Wilson argues that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger will be bad for users and for the Internet as a whole. "If you think about the Internet, it's a huge distributed network of loosely connected services owned and operated by literally millions. We don't need or want consolidation of services on the Internet," Wilson writes. But you know who the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is even worse news for? The incompetent executives who landed Yahoo in this pickle in the first place. They're ferociously spinning gullible reporters with rescue fantasies. Here are the five most widespread rumors — and why they're unlikely to happen.

Are there any other suitors for Yahoo? Not really, according to CNBC. They shoot down a number of potential buyers including IAC, Time Warner, and News Corp. The pundits posit AT&T as the only possible mate. Henry Blodget pours water on that theory too. He talked to a "senior executive" at Microsoft who says "AT&T encouraged us to make the bid. They have no interest in buying Yahoo themselves." GIven the huge premium Microsoft is offering, they may run away with Yahoo without a fight.

Learning that in the fourth quarter of 2007, AT&T activated only 900,000 of the 4 million iPhones sold to date, one financial analyst has proclaimed that demand for the iPhone is in decline. Wrong.

Last week, after the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld, my iPhone stopped downloading Web pages and sending text messages. I thought it was just a temporary glitch, but after two days, I realized there was a serious problem. I tracked down a thread on AT&T's help forums, and learned that the problem was my prepaid plan:

The recording and motion-picture industries have hounded broadband providers to police their pipes for file-sharing pirates. These advocacy groups want service providers to monitor and stop the illegal trafficking of files. AT&T has a filtering plan that Slate calls "baffling"; it would scan all emails and downloads for illicit content. But Time Warner Cable has found a much simpler way to deter film and music pirates — make them pay for bandwidth.

A big-league reporter emailed us to imply that he (or was that she? I forget) has inside info on today's Macworld product announcements, and that my hunch that there's a MacBook with AT&T wireless built in is totally wrong. Of course, the real point of the email was nyah nyah I'm special. But thanks for the tip.

What's the biggest frustration we have with our computers? Right: You can never get online when you need to. I stuck my neck out and told local talk radio host Jon Bristow to watch for an AT&T-equipped MacBook tomorrow. Not just because I want one, but because it has the potential to steal an entirely new market for Apple.

In its February issue, Wired promises "The Untold Story" of the iPhone. But as typical for the magazine, they instead deliver a rehash of things you mostly already know, spread over 3,336 lavish words. Here, instead, are 378 words, in bullet points, containing the truly juicy tidbits Wired writer Fred Vogelstein was able to turn up. My favorite? That when Steve Jobs gets really mad, he doesn't scream. He stares.

AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson blamed the weak economy for unpaid phone and broadband bills at Citigroup's annual media and telecom conference. As a result, shareholders blamed Stephenson and wiped nearly 5 percent of the phone company's value off the stock market during the conversation. [Silicon Alley Insider]

Are you among the almost 14 percent of households to have abandoned landlines in favor of cell phones, but still want to get DSL broadband Internet? If so, AT&T has finally begun offering so-called "naked" DSL. Naked DSL was framed as a concession to consumer groups and the FCC when AT&T acquired BellSouth. But it's actually just good business.

Sprint Nextel has a new CEO to replace Gary Forsee, who exited the company in October. Dan Hesse, former CEO of Embarq, a local phone company that Sprint spun out last year, will take the post. Hesse previously worked 23 years at AT&T, including a stint running AT&T Wireless. [WSJ]

Vonage isn't just facing service issues today. It's also been revealed that Nortel countersued the Internet telephone provider over a patent dispute. That makes four big telephone companies suing Vonage for patent infringement: AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon, and now Nortel. The good news: At this rate, Vonage is running out of companies to get sued by. [News.com]

Dan Glickman, head of the MPAA, is calling on Internet service providers to implement filtering to protect movies from piracy. AT&T has already announced plans to develop such a system, but there are few details. It's also not clear if Glickman has any rationale for placing the onus on ISPs, considering the law's not on his side. And yet, the prospect of holding them legally responsible for piracy on their networks is implied in his statements.