In another twist on monetizing the "Connected Car", AT&T recently announced that its "Mobile Share Value" data plan -which lets customers purchase a monthly allotment of 4G/LTE mobile data that can be shared among smartphones and tablets used by family members -now allows cars to be added to the list of "devices" that can tap into the same data quota. So far, AT&T has announced 2 auto manufacturers, GM and Audi, will support the Mobile Share Value plan in this way.

From a consumer standpoint, this makes a lot of sense. Auto manufacturers have sought to bring the consumer app and content experience into the car in some way or another -e.g., by trying to seamlessly connect a user's smartphone to the car's entertainment and telematics systems, and/or by creating user-friendly, non-distracting Head-Up Display (HUD) interfaces to these systems. Furthermore,recent announcements by Apple and Google for their car Operating System solutions (CarPlay and Android Auto, respectively) are expected to bring the Connected Car to a more mainstream market. Users will increasingly view the car as yet just another device with which they want to access content, apps, social media communications, etc.

Expect more mobile operators to catch up to AT&T's forward-leaning view of Shared Data Plans, which leverage unique capabilities of Mobile Policy and Evolved Packet Core solutions to provide new revenues operators by:

• Increasing the strength of subscriber relationships and reducing churn
• Driving smartphone upgrades to families and small businesses that may be resistant to "per subscriber" data plan pricing
• Providing up-sell opportunities for additional family-targeted (e.g., parental controls) and small business (e.g., mobile VPN) services

Read this two-page summary that explains how you can offer your users Shared Data Plans for smartphones, tablets, cars, wearable devices -and who knows what next!

Tweet us @CiscoSPMobility if you have any questions or would like to request a demo.

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Resources:

• Cisco ASR 5500 Multimedia Core Platform
• Cisco ASR 5000 Series Small Cell Gateway
• Cisco Quantum Policy Suite
• Cisco Quantum Service Bus (QSB)
• Cisco Prime Analytics
• Cisco Small Cell Solutions