In what is probably at attempt to boost its sales for mobile devices, AT&T is apparently soon to follow in its rival, Verizon’s footsteps, in offering family data plans to its customers with the tariffs apparently already decided. The news came through AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega in an interview with the folks over at CNet at CTIA 2012. Although de la Vega did not mention a specific date as to when the service will begin, he did apparently say that it would be later this year.
Reportedly, he was doubtful over plans in this vein due to a few obstacles related to implementation and billing issues. Nevertheless, it seems that the company has decided to ignore the problems that it might face while having to subsidize devices to effectively offer large amounts of data that can be used across a range of devices including smartphones and tablets.
De la Vega said, “I’m very comfortable with the plan that will be offered to our customers.” However, the question that remains is whether the carrier will roll out the services before its major rival does. While we still don’t know when this shared family data plan service will make its appearance, we can be sure that when it does, the on-going battle between the carriers will expand into this new category, but as usual; when providers of a service have competition, it usually means that the customers reap the benefits but that is just my personal opinion.