At a glance, AT&T's Mobile Share plans--which charge you one monthly fee for a shared pool of data, plus individual monthly fees for every device attached to your plan--don't seem to make sense unless you have lots of devices (or ). My bill, which would only cover my iPhone and iPad, would increase by quite a bit if I switched to Mobile Share--though, granted, I'd then have access to my larger pool of iPhone data rather than a separate, tiny pool of iPad data.

Regardless, here's the deal: According to the AT&T customer-service rep I spoke with, the iPad can be added to any AT&T Mobile Share plan, for the requisite $10 per month fee for every tablet device added to a plan. However, there are a few catches.

First, according to the man on the other end of the phone, I'd need a new microSIM card for my iPad. If I wanted to make the switch immediately, I'd need to visit an AT&T retail store to get the card, but if I wanted to wait AT&T could send me one.

Second, since this would be considered the activation of a new device on my account, I'd be charged a $36 one-time activation fee.

So while it's nice to know that there is a way to add an AT&T iPad to a shared data pool, it's an inelegant process spiked with extra fees.