Digital Home Thoughts: Multi-Device Plans From Carriers: A Must For the Future?

"The reality is that more and more of us have more than one wireless device in our lives and are finding it difficult to justify paying for multiple data plans just because we want to own a smartphone (or two), a tablet, and a laptop. You can see the carriers straining to figure out the right way to price data service on Samsung's new Galaxy Tab tablet (the subject of an earlier newsletter); a shared data plan would make it so much easier for someone to buy one and just add it to their existing plan or bump up their plan a tier."

People reading these sites in other parts of the world - namely Asia and Europe - will, right about now, be thinking "Yeah, we already have that - why are you guys in North American so ass backwards?". Well my Asian and European friends, you're entirely right. We are ass backwards. Our wireless carriers here want us to pay a contract fee for every device we connect - I already pay for Internet access once for my home connection, once for my phone, and they want me to pay another fee to connect my laptop - oh, and once to connect a tablet. This is the way things are, though in 2011 the wireless carriers in North American might, MIGHT, get that this is not a customer-friendly approach.