Verizon said in May that it was looking into offering multiple-device data plans, and now it's official — CEO Lowell McAdam announced at a UBS investor conference that the new plans will be available sometime in 2012. The plans will allow families to have one data plan shared across everyone's phones, much like the family plans that currently exist, just measured in gigabytes instead of minutes. McAdam didn't provide much in the way of specifics when he made the announcement, but did say that the idea has been in the works for a couple of years; that's not surprising given that shared data plans are already available in Europe and elsewhere. It sounds like a rare customer-friendly move for Verizon, but we'll wait for pricing details before we draw any real conclusions.