Optus to share data across devices with pooling

In the post PC world, we’re all spending far less time behind the desk in the office, and more from a mobile desk in the field. In a mobile world, we rely on different devices, and usually mobile data, so wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to share the data?

Optus may well be giving customers that opportunity, as the company unleashes data pooling, allowing two devices on one account — say a phone and a tablet, each with mobile support — or several devices in a family or business to share data across the account.

“We want customers to get the most out of their mobile and tablet plans,” said Ben White, Vice President of Mobile Marketing at Optus.

“Sharing from one data pool means you only have one bill and keeping track of data usage is so much simpler. Now, if mum doesn’t use all the data from her mobile phone plan, she doesn’t need to hand over her phone when the kids have already finished the data in their tablet, it’s already in the pool ready to share on their own devices.”

This means if you have an allowance of 12GB on an account, it can be shared across devices using the pooling concept, though each device will need mobile support built in, as otherwise there’s no way for it to get online.

As for who this applies to, Optus tells GadgetGuy that the Data Pool service can be switched on to both mobile and mobile broadband accounts for both consumer and business, and that there is no charge to add devices to a pool, but just that they need to be under the same account.

“It’s a great time to be an Optus customer,” said White. “Now there are no excuses not buy that brand new iPhone or iPad and share your data in one data pool.”

Availability on the service runs until October 5, though we’ll be curious to see if Optus pushes this one a little longer if it does well.