According to the Wall Street Journal, AT&T has a new idea: Force app developers to cover the bill.

As smartphones become more and more popular, data usage and the expenses that can go with it are increasingly becoming hot-button topics for wireless customers and carriers alike. Too often we hear stories about smartphone users being charged extra, or having their connection speeds slashed, for heavy data usage.

According to the publishing house, AT&T is said to be tinkering with a service that would put a new tab on app developers. That is, the devs would pay the wireless carrier for some of the data used by app consumers for things like streaming movies and smartphone applications.

John Donovan, AT&T’s head of network and technology, says that the country’s second-largest wireless provider is considering a “toll-free calling” plan for mobile apps. The system would work in a similar way to 1-800 numbers in that the company providing the service (in this case, the app maker), would cover the connection costs.

“A feature that we’re hoping to have out sometime next year is the equivalent of 800 numbers that would say, if you take this app, this app will come without any network usage.” – said Donovan.

Carriers have been considering different pricing models for years as they look for ways to make more money from skyrocketing mobile-data use. But AT&T’s approach would be novel, an attempt to push some of the cost of data traffic back onto the Internet companies and other service providers that profit from it.

Donovan sees such as service as a way to create new revenue streams that presently don’t exist and then find a way to split them. As the would-be service and its associated benefits were described, “a customer nearing his data limit for the month could be more likely to download a movie if the content provider covered the price of the data transmission.”

if AT&T’s new plan goes into place, developers would be able to offer certain apps where the data usage comes at no cost to the user. Obviously, this will have significant repercussions for the developer community, as big companies that can afford to cover customer data costs gain an edge over independent developers. It could also result in apps costing more up front, with the promise of no data fees.

Unfortunately, few details about the plan have yet been released, so we don’t know if this toll-free app scheme will be put in place; or, if so, when. Despite that, it seems to us likely that AT&T will move forward, as it would give the company the ability to get paid for data while not having to raise subscribers’ bills.

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[Source: WSJ]