AT&T Working on Shared Data Plans

Another interesting tidbit was unveiled by AT&T Mobility CEO, Ralph de la Vega, concerning the company’s future strategy for data plans. Instead of having to buy a separate data plan for each wireless device, such as an iPhone and iPad 3G, customers will be able to purchase a “shared data plan” that could be used across all registered devices.

After receiving a lot of criticism over the network’s poor reliability and quality, AT&T is trying to adapt and build a better infrastructure for the largest group of smartphone customers in the U.S. These shared data plans look to be part of the plan for creating a better AT&T…

Engadget,

“AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega just confirmed at the D9 conference today that the carrier is “working on” a shared data plan, but he’s not committing to a time frame just yet. He also left no doubts about those plans when pressed further on the question, clearly opening the door to a situation where you could have an iPad, an Atrix 4G, an AT&T netbook and just about anything else all sharing a unified pool of minutes and data. He didn’t offer any hints about possible pricing, though, and it certainly sounds like this is something that’s still a ways out from actually being launched.”

It’s clear that this feature is still very much in the development stages, but it suggests some interesting change-ups to the traditional wireless plans that are offered today.

For families with multiple iPhones or even different smartphones on the same family plan, shared data plans could be a much cheaper and more practical solution than the current, a la carte system. These types of shared plans could also make more sense for tethering users that wish to share data with multiple devices and save money.

What do you think? Would you buy a shared data plan if you had the option?

[AppAdvice]