The Future for iPhone and iPad Data Plans?
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France Telecom’s Orange unit is changing the face of data plans by offering their customers the ability to share data allotments across multiple devices, negating the need to have a separate plan for each. This makes good sense with the current alternative being to sign up for distinct data plans for each device while requiring those of us with serious commitment issues to agree to contracts of up to 3 years. This option has encouraged many of us to choose the WiFi versions of the iPad and seek out other alternatives such as tethering to our iPhones when data access is required on the go.
This concept is not a foreign one, as many carriers have allowed families to share minutes and other features across multiple phones on a single account for some time now. When polled, many North American carriers have indicated that they are looking into this style of data plan but do so without strong indications as to when it might be available.
With many reports recently of carriers eliminating their unlimited data plans and moving to a model where customers will pay for all of the data they use, it really shouldn’t make any difference how many devices are on a single plan. If your iPad drives up your data usage significantly, you’ll be paying for that anyway –but if it doesn’t, the carrier still gets the nominal fee for having the device on your account and keeps your business. Seems rather win-win to me.
Would you pay a few dollars a month to add your iPad onto your existing iPhone data plan? Would you choose a carrier based on having that ability?
[via All Things D]
