This is something that has been bugging me for ages.

If you check out the various AIS monthly 'plans' for providing unlimited Edge/3G, you will find that there are different rates for different devices. The unlimited price for a Blackberry is cheaper than that for an iPad, which is different again from a Samsung Tablet, and different again from various makes of smart phones.

How on earth do AIS know what device you have put your SIM into, and in any case, why the differential in the monthly rates?

Doesn't make much sense to me...!!!

They used to have an unlimited 1-2 call edge Blackberry Plan that was quite a bit cheaper than their normal unlimited net-sim. I used it with my sony phone, no problem.

Yea the Apple stuff seems to bring a higher rate...must think if you're hiso enough to own an ipad or iphone then you should pay more for the service.

its probably about data

a blackberry user will probably not use a lot , a media oriented device like an apple ipad user will likely use way more data watching videos on youtube and streaming music etc than a blackberry user would use sending a couple of business emails or chatting on bb instant messenger

As for the question in your title, I am not sure but I suspect every device that connects to the internet has its own "signature". Some of this technology is great but eventually a lot of it is used by governments to track and control the masses. Like when they put GPS systems into phones. Now if you take a picture with your GPS enabled phone it is not hard for anyone to find out where you were standing when you took it. Now they want to develop the same technology for indoor use, so they can track the "bad guys that are accessing restricted areas". All done in the name of security. Give people a reason to want something and they will gladly give up all kinds of personal info. (Facebook), But if you can't give them a good reason to embrace it, just sneak it in unannounced. This is probably the way AIS knows which device you are using. I'm sure someone that knows for sure will chime in.

As for the question in your title, I am not sure but I suspect every device that connects to the internet has its own "signature". Some of this technology is great but eventually a lot of it is used by governments to track and control the masses. Like when they put GPS systems into phones. Now if you take a picture with your GPS enabled phone it is not hard for anyone to find out where you were standing when you took it. Now they want to develop the same technology for indoor use, so they can track the "bad guys that are accessing restricted areas". All done in the name of security. Give people a reason to want something and they will gladly give up all kinds of personal info. (Facebook), But if you can't give them a good reason to embrace it, just sneak it in unannounced. This is probably the way AIS knows which device you are using. I'm sure someone that knows for sure will chime in.

for this very reasons i akways chek the boxes that say :DO NOT send my location and anonymous data to GOOGLE/MICROSOFT/APPLE etc

but even if you opt out ,im sure they can monitor everything anyway

google" CARRIER IQ " and you wont believe some of the some of stuff they have been caught doing ........

Whena device connects to a network there is a lot of infomation passed to the network provider, it's not just "this is sim 123, gimmi some internet." They can also tell if the connection is being used by the phone itself or a tethered laptop.

As to the pricing, handsets are in a marketing war, the makers decide with the providers what to charge as a bundle for the handset and service.

My last blackberry came with totally free unlimited email and web browsing that was outside of the plan data cap.

The service provider knows the exact type of device you have from the IMEI number.

In many cases promotions have multiple dimensions which may be linked to a specific device (and as part of a hardware sale), a bundle of services or specific bucket sizes. Some devices have unique usage and/or application requirements. Service providers are continually trying to get new customers, retain current customers, segment customers and move them up the value chain (increase ARPU/move them from pre- to post-paid).

Blackberry services are unique so cannot really be compared with some of the other device/plan bundles.

iPhone bundled post-paid services tend to be less expensive perhaps owing to legacy plans, and/or HW bundling. Service providers here have gotten a bit more strict about requiring an iPhone device in order to register for iPhone services, but there are workarounds for this of course.

Besides post-paid and pre-paid options you can find bundles or layer your own bundle with voice, text, data. Or for data only devices, just a data plan.

Service providers here honor promotions nearly ad infinitum so as they introduce more the pool size grows linearly. Generally speaking I think this is a good thing for consumers, and a challenging thing for service providers to continually manage. If I were a brand/marketing manager I would be creating promotions all the time, but as a manager I might worry about confusing the marketplace, and the back-end burden of all these promotions. DTAC have actually cut-back quite a bit on the number of available plans, perhaps as a result of these concerns?