AT&T

It's safe to assume things are going to get a bit competitive between U.S. wireless carriers if Sprint and T-Mobile are really going to be carrying the iPhone 5 next month. According to Bloomberg, Sprint Nextel Corp. will try to separate itself from the competition by offering unlimited data service plans with the iPhone 5.

An anonymous source said Sprint will begin selling the next generation device in mid-October, and plans to steal customers away from AT&T and Verizon by being the only carrier to offer unlimited data. Both AT&T and Verizon charge for their data services.

3G is better than 2G, and according to the latest Apple rumor T-Mobile iPhone users may be getting an upgrade in October. A T-Mobile employee told MacTrast that Apple is developing an iPhone that would operate at 3G speeds via T-Mobile USA's network.

In June, a T-Mobile spokesperson said they were carrying more than a million unlocked iPhones on their network. The unlocked devices are stuck using T-Mobile's EDGE network, and can't access T-Mobile's faster 3G or 4G speeds.

It looks like BGR is taking back their August iPhone 5 release date. This time one of their "high-level AT&T sources" revealed that an AT&T Vice President told his employees to prepare themselves for a launch in early October.

The unnamed AT&T President said, “expect things to get really, really busy in the next 35-50 days."

October seems to be the new popular release date with iPhone fortunetellers, Gizmodo published an e-mail from someone claiming to be an AT&T employee, who wrote vacations were blacked out at the end of September. The Wall Street Journal reported that the iPhone 5 will be available sometime in late October. And 9to5Mac sources claim Apple will start accepting pre-orders in September and launch the iPhone 5 on October 7.

The party is officially over. iPhone owners who are using their devices as a cellular modem without permission from AT&T are about to see a change in their monthly bill. The wireless provider is about to act on the warnings it sent to users in violation of its terms of service earlier this year.

AT&T currently requires a $20 tethering plan to allow the iPhone to share its cellular data connection with other devices. The tethering plan provides 2 GB of data on top of the 2 GB Data Pro plan costing $25 monthly. Here's the catch: those subscribed to the $30 unlimited data plan aren't allowed to sign up for tethering at all.

With data-hungry Android devices taking over and the iPhone 5 due for release in the next month or two, AT&T is getting serious about usage tiers. iPhone owners who currently enjoy an unlimited data plan may think they have carte blanche to single-handedly dominate their local cell tower's data connection, however starting October 1st AT&T will be watching.

The wireless carrier plans to slow down transfer rates on the mobile devices of the top five percent of unlimited data users every month. Here's how it works: if you transfer enough data on your mobile device that you fall within the top five percent of users AT&T will throttle your speeds until the start of your next billing cycle. Of course, this won't happen immediately.