Family Data Plan

[gphipps]

We currently have a family plan with 5 lines. We have the family plan for messaging.

I have a smartphone, my son has an iPhone and my daughter is about to get a smartphone.

I would like to see a family data plan that allows all users to share a bank of data, ie 1GB, rather than having to purchase a seperate data plan for each phone. I use very little data but my son uses more. I have a lot of unused data each month. A bank of data would allow the data I don't use to be available to the other lines.

A pricepoint of $30-40 for 1GB shared seems fair to me. (based on $15/200MB per phone I'm paying now)

Good idea? I think so.

[RicoLX]

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gphipps wrote:

We currently have a family plan with 5 lines. We have the family plan for messaging.

I have a smartphone, my son has an iPhone and my daughter is about to get a smartphone.

I would like to see a family data plan that allows all users to share a bank of data, ie 1GB, rather than having to purchase a seperate data plan for each phone. I use very little data but my son uses more. I have a lot of unused data each month. A bank of data would allow the data I don't use to be available to the other lines.

A pricepoint of $30-40 for 1GB shared seems fair to me. (based on $15/200MB per phone I'm paying now)

Good idea? I think so.

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I see what you are saying.  So now, you are paying a total of $45 for data split up at 200MB per line  but you would like to pay a $40 total for a 1gb "shared" data....  I guess that would work for you, but not most customers.  Sharing data like that , and you won't  know when and how fast you will run out of "allotted/limited" data and end up paying more for overage charges.  One month, your son could sap up more data then normal and the other line could also hit some extra activity leaving the bank bone dry. 

[coolrhyme]

ATT doesnt have that at the moment. I hope they will think about it better deals.. hehehe

[hnzw_rui]

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gphipps wrote:

We currently have a family plan with 5 lines. We have the family plan for messaging.

I have a smartphone, my son has an iPhone and my daughter is about to get a smartphone.

I would like to see a family data plan that allows all users to share a bank of data, ie 1GB, rather than having to purchase a seperate data plan for each phone. I use very little data but my son uses more. I have a lot of unused data each month. A bank of data would allow the data I don't use to be available to the other lines.

A pricepoint of $30-40 for 1GB shared seems fair to me. (based on $15/200MB per phone I'm paying now)

Good idea? I think so.

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http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/02/atandt-confirms-its-working-on-a-shared-data-plan-wont-commit/

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.

[coolrhyme]

Still, this is a GOOD NEWS

[gphipps]

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RicoLX wrote:

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gphipps wrote:

We currently have a family plan with 5 lines. We have the family plan for messaging.

I have a smartphone, my son has an iPhone and my daughter is about to get a smartphone.

I would like to see a family data plan that allows all users to share a bank of data, ie 1GB, rather than having to purchase a seperate data plan for each phone. I use very little data but my son uses more. I have a lot of unused data each month. A bank of data would allow the data I don't use to be available to the other lines.

A pricepoint of $30-40 for 1GB shared seems fair to me. (based on $15/200MB per phone I'm paying now)

Good idea? I think so.

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One month, your son could sap up more data then normal and the other line could also hit some extra activity leaving the bank bone dry. 

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Obviously I would have to monitor data usage, as we do now. My kids are very good at watching what they use. I have no reason to believe that would change.

[vcolangelo]

Greed

[shalliha]

DEFINITELY greed.  You can't tell me that ATT doesn't have the capability to do this...they just don't want to.

[ShaunMN]

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to post your comments and opinions related to this topic. This topic has been thoroughly discussed and will now be closed.