AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega has told the Wall Street Journal that despite what he said back in October and earlier in December:

"We have not made any decision to implement tiered pricing."

Which is a weasel-wordy way of saying, contrary to previous statements that suggested they might do just that, AT&T isn't planning on charging customers by the byte -- yet. And they're still going to call their plans "unlimited" even as they try to get customers to use less 3G data via:

• More WiFi hotspots
• Microcells (femtocells) which re-route connections through your own broadband cable or DSL modem, effectively creating a mini cell tower in your home.
• Incentives (though de la Vega declined to comment on what those might be exactly)

Thanks in large part to the iPhone, AT&T data volumes have shot up 5000% and, according to a lot of recent blog-spun controversy, they've seen profits increase as well while simultaneously investing less and less in the network meant to support that usage.

AT&T is finally opening up and coming clean about their sub par service that is offered in areas of New York and San Francisco. Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility, recently spoke at a investors conference regarding the poor service.

“This is going to get fixed, in both of those markets, I am very confident that you’re going to see significant progress.”

Obviously this is good news for those of you in these areas. Worse news? AT&T might use "unlimited" to sell you your data plan, but they obviously don't intend for you to use it. And if you do, watch out.

Wireless data hogs who jam the airwaves by watching video on their iPhones will be put on tighter leashes.

Video. The horror!

De la Vega didn't say exactly how or when the carrier would change its policies, but he said some form of usage-based pricing for data is inevitable.

If one stops to think about the other carriers getting more attractive smartphone options and the fact that AT&T's iPhone exclusivity is running thin... AT&T better figure things out and fast.

[Thanks to the Reptile for the tip!]

Engdget Mobile scored an interview with Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility. Our favorite carrier CEO (for recently telling Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Nokia's CEO, and Euro-haters that "99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone"), shot from the hip on a wide range of issues, including AT&T outages, reports of iPhone reception problems, the success of the App Store, and the competitive landscape now that Google and Palm are (back) in the game.

Perhaps the best news for iPhone users on AT&T? He anticipates future firmware updates will continue to increase reception and reliability:

They're continuously looking for, and we communicate with Apple and say, you know, if we tweak this it would work better, so they've been very good about working with us and making sure that as we look at things to do the drop calls there, they're going to implement it.

Strangely, no word on dropping data rates or throwing in tethering gratis...