Remember the days of America Online before unlimited monthly service? If AT&T has their way, the past may soon return in the near future, this time with metered Internet data usage on the iPhone.

DailyTech has the details on Tuesday’s speech from AT&T Inc. chief executive Randall Stephenson at a Morgan Stanley conference in San Francisco. The telco exec claims that the company is planning “an eventual rollout of a metered billing plan.” And they may not be alone: Verizon Wireless also recently indicated their interest in at least a trial deployment of tiered pricing.

So what’s the big deal with metered pricing? If you don’t use your $30 per month data plan on your iPhone very much, it probably won’t affect you. But if you’re always on the go without Wi-Fi handy or do a lot of video streaming or VoIP calling, AT&T now has a bullseye painted on your forehead -- and you may soon be paying even more as a result.

Despite Stephenson’s unpopular stance on metered data usage, he sees the iPhone as being a “key product for quite some time” -- which many are translating into further exclusivity for Apple’s handset, with little hope of the device landing on Verizon or another carrier in the U.S. anytime soon.

On the subject of Apple’s forthcoming iPad, Stephenson was less enthusiastic and downplayed the 3G model of the device that’s expected next month. “[It’s] interesting to see the customer reaction to the iPad,” the exec stated. “We think it’s going to be a largely Wi-Fi driven product.” Of course, AT&T was largely unprepared for how much the iPhone revolutionized data usage, so that may not be saying much.

Stephenson was also quick to note that AT&T is beefing up its data infrastructure, particularly in trouble spots such as New York City and San Francisco, where iPhone users have been among the most vocal with problems. But the telco appears to be in no big hurry to move to the future with even faster wireless data by way of LTE (Long Term Evolution). While their competitors are busily deploying such 4G service this year, AT&T is targeting 2011 to get going on their own version, and it will be 2012 before that deployment is accelerated to any degree.

Of course, if all the predictions of world disaster coming in 2012 are true, it may not matter anyway, right?

(Image courtesy of DailyTech.com)