New Mobile Plan Pools Data On Unlimited Devices 68
Hugh Pickens writes "PC Magazine reports that Ting, a new reseller of Sprint's voice, 3G and WiMax services, has a new approach to mobile pricing that lets customers buy minutes, messages, and data separately, and allows households to pool them to an unlimited number of phones and data devices on one account. 'Household data plans are the next step for consumers, mainly because people are adding more connected screens and devices to their lifestyle,' writes Kevin Tofel. 'And different household members have different data needs; some use a little while others consume gobs of gigabytes. Why not average out the usage across multiple devices?' Both AT&T and Verizon have hinted at offering shared data plans in the future, but the devil's in the details, says Tofel. 'My hope is that family data plans come soon, to all carriers, just like we have for family voice and messaging plans.'"
Re:Data, minutes, SMS (Score:2, Informative)
No, they are not. There's a dedicated line from the phone to the local exchange, and at least if you can get DSL, the circuit ends there. The digitization of the phone network was the reason why 56k modems worked: The fastest mode was quasi-digital instead of modulation/demodulation.
Wow, "New"? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm in Canada, with Rogers, and while they do suck, I have had a family data plan for 1GB (actually I share everything else too) with my wife for 3 years now..
I find it extremely odd that the US does not have this... it's like hearing they don't have wheels, or fire.