Mobile Data "Family Plans" are Coming

Service providers have been slow to roll out new “family plans” for broadband access spanning fixed and mobile domains, or including a range of mobile devices. But that doesn’t mean they won’t do so. The issue is timing.


Family plans for mobile devices, for example, will undoubtedly have the same impact on revenue as family plans did for mobile phone accounts: grow accounts and revenue, but with much-lower average revenue per device, or user.


Under those conditions, it is no surprise that service providers haven’t been exceptionally interested in moving too quickly to create family data plans that allow a number of devices to share a common data account, much as plans now allow multiple phones to share a common pool of voice minutes or test messages.


Recently, leading mobile operators including Rogers Wireless and Bell Mobility in Canada, Telefónica Movistar in Spain, and Orange Mobistar and Proximus in Belgium have launched multi-device plans, though. SFR France launched an extra SIM option on one of its mobile data plans during the summer this year. Mobile Data "Family Plans" are Coming - Carrier Evolution