Verizon's been talking about adopting shared family data plans for quite a while now, but it looks like 2012 will be the year that Big Red stops talking and starts doing. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam said that he expects shared data plans to come sometime next year. "I think in 2012 we will see it," McAdam explained. "We have been working on this for a couple of years. Getting to one bill and getting to account-level pricing is our goal." The exec didn't touch on how shared data plans might work, but he did say that customers with several smart devices have been clamoring for such an option for a while.

Shared data isn't the only topic that McAdam touched on at the conference, as he also spoke about the batch of AWS spectrum that Verizon recently dropped $3.6 billion on. McAdam explained that the purchase was a "hand in the glove" opportunity and that most of the spectrum included lies west of the Mississippi River, which compliments the AWS spectrum that Verizon already holds in that part of the country. Lastly, McAdam talked about Isis, the mobile payment joint venture that Verizon's participating in with the likes of AT&T and T-Mobile, saying that it'll see a "significant" market rollout by the end of 2012.

Folks with several data-hungry devices on a Verizon family plan ought to be happy to hear that shared plans, if only because it should make reading and understanding a monthly bill just a tad easier. We've also heard from AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega that his carrier is also hard at work on a shared data plan, but there hasn't been much else said on the topic since de la Vega first dropped word earlier this year. What do all of you Verizon customers think of this news? Think you'd be interested in signing up for a shared data plan?

Via Phone Scoop, Fierce Wireless