Last week, Sprint confirmed its plans to place a 5GB cap on its mobile hotspot plan beginning October 2nd and, despite the fact that the carrier pointed out that its phone data plans would remain unlimited, some customers feared that the change could bring about tiered data offerings in the near future. You Sprint folk can put down the pitchforks for now, though, as CTO Stephen Bye explained yesterday that data plans on the Now Network will stay unlimited, at least for now. "There's clearly a cost to support unlimited," Bye said at the GigaOm Mobilize conference, adding that not all unlimited customers are heavy data users. Bye also explained that keeping simple-to-understand unlimited data plans around saves Sprint some money on customer support since reps don't need to take the time to sort through tiered plans with users.

So there you have it, Sprintsters. It's good to see Sprint is still committed to keeping its unlimited data plans around, even as its competitors make the jump to tiered offerings. That said, it's not clear how long Sprint will be able to keep the all you can eat data buffet going as more users jump onto its network, especially with the iPhone reportedly around the corner. For now, though, feel free to keep on gobbling up the bytes, Sprint users.

Via MobileBurn, CNET