You can order either the black or white iPhone 4 right now, and the best news of all is that you’ll be able to tack on Sprint’s unlimited data pricing plans, too. Sprint announced via official press release on Wednesday that it would be making unlimited plans available for both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, which start at $69.99 plus $10 Premium Data add-on for plans with restricted minutes, and go up to $99.99 plus $10 Premium Data add-on for the Simply Everything plan.

Sprint will start taking pre-orders for the iPhone 4S on Friday, Oct. 7. Pricing for the iPhone 4S on Sprint is the same as it is on other U.S. carriers; $199 for the 16 GB version, $299 for 32 GB and $399 for 64 GB. To get those prices, you have to sign up for a new two-year agreement, either as a brand new customer to Sprint, or and existing customer who’s eligible to upgrade.

The iPhone is a notorious network data hog, and some were worried that unlimited data might not fly when Sprint got the device. In a recent article, wireless consultant Chetan Sharma noted that Sprint is in much better shape than AT&T was to deal with iPhone data demands. However, another wireless industry expert, Michael W. Thelander, cautioned that because of the nature of Sprint’s bandwidth spectrum, it may run into coverage problems similar to those encountered by AT&T customers.

It might also just generally be slower. Stacey went into detail about why; Sprint uses a CDMA-based 3G network with considerably slower theoretical speeds than AT&T’s HSPA+ network can offer. However, Sprint’s network divides voice and data traffic on different networks, which should enhance call quality even as it sacrifices some speed in terms of tasks like loading mobile video.

Are you planning to pre-order an iPhone from Sprint, and if so, is unlimited data a motivating factor? Does it matter that network speeds may be perceptibly lower?

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The report from the Dispatch describes slow or severed connections that students at the University of Missouri-Columbia experienced when coming back to classes this September. At that U.S. school, the number of wireless devices active on the network at any one time maxed out at 900 last year. Already in 2011, it’s hit 8,000 devices actively using the school’s connection at once.

The iPad is the biggest change in terms of the mobile connected-device landscape in recent years. Apple’s tablet still owns the market for that category of device, and it’s an optimal device for consuming streaming video, since it features a much larger display than smartphones, but is much simpler to turn on and hold than a cumbersome notebook computer. The iPad alone was already equal to Android’s share of online mobile video consumption back in May, and Apple’s other devices occupy a huge slice of the pie, too.

While Apple’s iPad may have multiplied the problem, iPhones and other smartphones have already significantly affected demand for Wi-Fi on college campuses. Students now expect strong on-campus Wi-Fi as one of the perks associated with going to school–it factors into their feeling of satisfaction over what they pay in tuition. Washington University’s Andrew Orstadt, who is the associated vice chancellor for information services and technology, says the demand for high capacity should be met within reason, no matter what students end up using the bandwidth for. He told the Dispatch that since students live on campus, schools should “make sure they are doing what they want to do” with their recreation time, too.

The challenge now is for schools to be able to meet the growing demand for reliable Wi-Fi with a growing population of connected devices with increasing technical specs. Next-gen devices will be able to stream higher-quality video to and from the web, and do more than one task at a time without as much of a cost on battery life or processor power. Students two years from now could likely be streaming one full HD video to their tablets while downloading another two equally high-bandwidth files in the background.

Apple’s devices may only be fuel for the fire that is demand for college Wi-Fi Internet access, but the iPad’s success and the rise in connected-device usage seen by the University of Missouri-Columbia in the wake of its introduction is a good sign that as far as fuel goes, it’s the rocket-powering kind.

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Bambuser calls this “complement data” technology, and company CEO Jonas Vig told me that it was developed in-house. “Our proprietary streaming protocol adapts the frame rate in order to keep the video at a minimal latency,” Vig said, adding: “In order to not compromise the on-demand frame rate of the video, we developed the complement data technology to re-insert any frames that (weren’t) transmitted in real-time.”

Vig went on to explain that Bambuser doesn’t have a set minimim frame rate. Instead, when the frame rate drops too much compared to the original video, it simply suggests to shoot with a lower resolution. The apps also always prioritize audio. “A good flow and consistency in the audio is what the users often perceive as most important,” said Vig.

Optimizing the archived stream frames after a live stream has ended makes sense, considering that in many cases, the majority of users actually watch broadcasts after they’re over – something that Justin.tv recently paid tribute to with the launch and eventual spin-off of its Socialcam platform.

But restricting the upload to the dropped frames as opposed to re-uploading the entire file also is something that should make both mobile operators as well as end users who increasingly face bandwidth caps happy. Said Vig: “It’s significantly more efficient if you only have to patch, say, 15 to 25 percent of the frames to get a vastly improved viewing experience on demand, compared to having to upload a new version of the full video.”

He added that this approach will also take much less time, meaning that the full-quality version will be available sooner. (To learn more about challenges and opportunities of mobile bandwidth constraints, check out our Mobilize conference, happening next week in San Francisco.)

The new Bambuser apps will also offer a Google Maps mashup that will show where live streams are happening as well as an interesting take on live chat: Bambuser will replay past live chats synchronized with archived videos to give users a sense of what people were talking about when a live event unfolded.

Check out our previous interview with Bambuser CEO Jonas Vig and Chairman Hans Eriksson:

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Overall, video streaming now accounts for 39 percent of all mobile traffic. File sharing, which includes both P2P file transfers and downloads from one-click host sites like MegaUpload and RapidShare, is a distant second with 29 percent, and web browsing accounts for 25 percent of all mobile traffic.

Video streaming grew 93 percent in the first six months of 2011. VoIP and IM traffic grew even faster at 101 percent, but they still only represent a total of 4 percent of all mobile traffic.

All in all, mobile data grew 77 percent over the past year. That’s far higher than the growth of fixed networks, which Allot puts at 25 percent. Allot Communications gathers its data from mobile networks around the world, representing more than 250 million customers.

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