"Tethering" and "Multi-Device" Mobile Plans

"Tethering," the ability to use a mobile device such as a smart phone to then share access with one or more other devices has been a contentious issue. Though supported as a native function on Android devices, tethering often is disabled by mobile service providers anxious to sell one more feature.

Consumers or industry observers sometimes object that this amounts to charging a customer more than once for something they've already bought, a point of view that also has been raised with respect to use of mobile VoIP.

That particular objection someday will be obviated, though, as mobile service providers introduce multi-device mobile data plans that allow a single account to share a single usage bucket across a range of devices supported on a specific account.

In some ways, service providers already are moving to make the argument moot. As more mobile service plans include a specific usage cap, it will matter less how any particular data plan is used. At some level, it matters not whether a 2-Gbyte bucket of usage attached to a single account is used directly by a smart phone or by a tablet that uses a Wi-Fi personal hot spot feature of that device. Either way, the usage is paid for.

Some might argue the growing base of 4G-equipped tablets will be activated for such use on a widespread basis only after multi-device plans are created.

According to industry analyst Chetan Sharma, about 90 percent of tablets sold in the United States towards the end of 2011 were Wi-Fi only. Even most units capable of using a mobile broadband account likely were not used in that way, most end users preferring to rely on simple tethering or available Wi-Fi access instead.

A multiple-device data plan, similar to a shared bucket of voice minutes or text messages, usable by a number of devices on a single account, will change the economics, though. At that point, the perceived cost penalty (one more dedicated mobile data account) will recede.