As the nominal CEO of a family of four mobile phone users, I have been hesitant about upgrading our dumb phones (which I have been perfectly happy with) to models with a bit more gray matter. But my wife, the real head of the family, has been dying to trade in her serviceable but frumpy clamshell phone to something smarter. That means, of course, I will have to cave on this issue.
But there is a tangible reason for my aversion: the fear of what four data plans (actually, five, including our iPad) would cost.
Is help really coming?
So I was relieved to hear that Verizon
"I think in 2012 we will see it. We have been working on this for a couple of years. Getting to one bill and getting to account-level pricing is our goal," McAdam said.
But other carriers have teased us before:
AT&T
And Sprint Nextel
It's been done before
No U.S. mobile carrier yet offers such a plan, but France Telecom's
If data plans do come that would allow all the mobile devices in a single account to share their data rations -- the way that voice minutes can be pooled in a family plan -- it would go a long way toward alleviating my own data-usage angst. I'm sure I'm not the only one.
It would also be the perfect way for the wireless carriers to make up for the way they took unlimited data plans off the table. I know, Sprint advertises unlimited data plans, but seriously, how long can it keep that loss leader up, especially with its 4G LTE network somewhere over the horizon?
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