Here at TalkAndroid.com, we love talking about all things Android… obviously. Today, however, we’re going to take a step back and look at another aspect of Google’s mobile platform: the carriers.

Most of us have a bit of a love-hate relationship with our cellular providers. We’re thankful for the service they provide, but beyond that, things get hazy. When I say we’re thankful for the service, I mean that we are thankful that they provide service at all. Reception is another issue most of the time, along with call quality and dropped calls. Then, there’s the data options, and that’s where this rant comes in.

AT&T announced a couple months back that they were putting a cap on their “unlimited” data plan, putting it up to a max of 2GB per month. On top of capping unlimited data (oxymoron much?), they have set up tiered pricing: 200MB / month and 2GB / month, with massive overage charges, the most expensive of which are on the 250MB plan. Their logic, of course, is that there are some users who won’t use as much data and would prefer to pay less for it. Now, Verizon has followed suit in the price tiering, saying they are going to impliment data tiers similar to AT&T, but they also say they do not agree with the way AT&T “values data”, which will make it interesting to see how Verizon will roll out the pricing. Even T-Mobile was gazing eye-to-eye with a lawsuit a while back, wherein the plaintiff said they capped his data usage without informing him in his initial contract.

Wake up, carriers! It’s not 2004 anymore, and it’s time to stop acting – and pricing – like it is. The mobile market, in general, is moving towards higher end phones that consume a lot of data by default. We are well on our way to being the most socially-centered society ever. What with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and similar services, we are becoming a people that have to be constantly connected… and that means data consumption on-the-go. Not too terribly long ago, mobile data was considered a commodity, viewed by many as a rather unnecessary privelege made mostly for business types and the well-to-do. Now, however, data is practically a need on a daily basis. E-mail, searching things on the go, staying in touch: these have all become an integral part of our lives, and people are beginning to wise up to the carriers’ games. The cost of keeping up a reliable data network is nothing in comparison to amount of money the consumer is being charged to access that data. The profit margin to the providers is almost obscene.

Then, there’s tethering. Tethering is the ability to utilize the mobile data on your device from other devices, such as laptops and tablet computers, even your home or work desktop if need be. The carriers lump the data that you use in this fashion separately, as if it costs them more for you to access their data network from a device other than the ones that they have sanctioned. The truth? No way. Some would argue that they are simply charging you for the convenience of using this method of data consumption, which is equally outrageous, considering that the amount the average consumer pays to tether is the same amount they pay for “unlimited” data. That’s like paying your cable bill, plus an equal amount of money for every television you want to watch said cable on.

It’s time our cellular providers wake up and smell the data. What with the ways carriers are limiting and pricing data usage, it seems they are trying to keep in peoples’ minds the idea that mobile data is still a precious and fragile service that requires every cent raked in from consumers who use the service to maintain. However, it may be time for the carriers to reevaluate their data strategy, as consumers are catching on to what the providers are pulling, some of which is thanks to internet access on-the-go. How ironic.