One issue that's certain to be sticky for carriers and consumers alike is data caps. De La Vergne doesn't expect caps to be significantly expanded and instead thinks carriers will continue to offer plans in the $50-for-5GB per month plans. At the same time he says that carriers need to do more to educate users about how quickly video can chew through their monthly limits. He also wants to see carriers make the overage fees for the multi-device plans "reasonable" so that consumers don't get gouged if they go over their caps on multiple devices.

As for when we can expect to see multi-device data plans rolled out, De La Vergne expects that Verizon will be the first carrier to offer them within the next six months, followed closely thereafter by AT&T and Sprint. Sprint is a particularly interesting case since it has so far been the only wireless carrier that has not placed any data caps on its LTE smartphone plans. However, De La Vergne doesn't see that model holding up when Sprint starts offering multi-device plans since video data traffic from tablets will put significant strain on the network.

"Data revenue is expected to expand to become 65% of total U.S. wireless service revenue as voice declines to 35% in 2016," De La Vergne wrote in his analysis for Gartner released today. "Driving the explosion of mobile data will be the increase in demand for mobile video content, which will drive sales of larger-screen devices."

in Network World's Anti-malware section.