More and more people these days are running about with multiple devices; smartphones and tablets in general are most relevant to this topic. I, on occasion, am one of those people. Every now and then, my iPad2 3G gets to see the outside of my house… strangely dependent on my Nokia N9 providing a wireless hotspot for it instead of utilizing it’s inbuilt 3G. Why?
As it stands, I’m paying $XXX to maxis telecommunications each month; of which a fair chunk goes towards 1.5GB of data for one of my 4 SIM cards. In cases such as mine, maxis feels the need to charge the full charge for data assuming I’m in need of another SIM card for my iPad. I on the other hand, am not really interested in being ripped off by a telco I’m already paying a premium for. Question is, does maxis “lose” anything from allowing data quotas being shared amongst an account (or certain SIM cards in an account) similar to how some of their existing voice plans allow airtime sharing amongst SIMs on account that are subscribed to a certain package or above? Probably not.
As in my case, a fair number would probably prefer to make use of their existing data allowance attached to another device (at the cost of battery life). The vast majority will run out and grab a (far more) affordable data only SIM from another provider. Maxis here is at best not making any difference to their income (in this case) and at worst, actually creating a group of maxis subscribers that will go out and look to subscribe to another telco (on top of maxis). All this, when they could easily fill the subscribers needs in house.