Mobile customers have been waiting for what seems like forever for family shared data. One carrier that’s been slowly working on making it happen is Verizon. Not to long ago we saw leaked training material from Verizon that showed they were gearing up for some sort of family shared data plan. We now have a better idea of when to expect these changes as Verizon’s Communication CFO Fran Shammo spoke about them in an investors meeting yesterday.

Shammo says to expect something launched mid-year and goes on to talk about how these shared data plans make more sense:

“So when you think about connecting the devices to the network, it’s more than just a smartphone and a tablet,” he said. “It’s more around everything that happens in our daily lives. So when you talk about data sharing, you talk about having the ability to connect more devices without having to in essence pay more for a bundle.”

He also talks about their plans for migrating everyone to 4G LTE and says Verizon will continue their double data promotion for another two months, offering double the data allotment to anyone who purchases a LTE device on a contract.

“It is very critical for us and we’re playing a very delicate balancing act here that I don’t want to spend any more money on my 3G network.”

There was no word on price or how switching to one of these new plans would affect “unlimited” users still grandfathered in but we’re assuming they’ll be forced into a tiered data plan.

So I guess the good news is these plans will be here soon and should provide some relief to families with multiple lines. The bad news, they seem to apply only to 4G LTE devices and will most likely boot you out of your unlimited plan (if you have one).

via Phandroid

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