The January 15-announced $30 price-cuts on some unlimited voice calling packages of the two big US mobile-phone service providers, Verizon wireless and AT&T, may actually boost the revenue figures for the companies – with the price-cut announcements being accompanied by some other price moves that will get the users to subscribe to data plans with higher price tags.

Noting that the ‘net effect’ of the price-cut announcement would likely be increased revenue, analyst Jennifer Fritzsche, of Wells Fargo Securities in Chicago and co-owner with Verizon’s Vodafone Group, told Bloomberg News: “We could see a move upwards rather than downwards. Any kind of voice pricing is very much a commodity.”

Citing a specific example of the inherent gains to Verizon after the reduced price announcement, Credit Suisse analyst Jonathan Chaplin elaborated that while the company will forgo $540 million in voice revenue, it will generate an additional $630 million in data plan sales – thereby making a net gain of $90 million.

Similarly, while the new AT&T customers going in for some of so-called ‘feature phones’ - the most popular present-day devices that allow Web accessibility but are technically not the smartphones - were thus far not required to purchase any data plans, they will henceforth have to shell out at least $20 per month for unlimited texting or data plans.