The device manufacturer will eat the cost of the 5G subscription, since it will likely be lower than the revenue generated from the harvested personal data.
So the cost will be minimal and further reduced by the bulk volume that the manufacturer would purchase from the telco. Like how Amazon Kindle comes with a free 3G connection to download your books and upload your reading habits.
> So the cost will be minimal and further reduced by the bulk volume that the manufacturer would purchase from the telco. Like how Amazon Kindle comes with a free 3G connection to download your books and upload your reading habits.
I have no doubt a TV manufacturer selling millions of devices could get any US LTE carrier to sell them a low-bandwidth data service for pennies per device per month. You're talking about retail rates, when a bulk IoT buyer like this will not be paying anything close to retail.
As for the logistics, it's not that hard. They already have to produce separate SKUs for various regions for the power adapters. So you just add another variable: included SIM card. US gets a [Verizon|ATT|T-Mo] SIM, EU gets one of their carriers, etc.
I figured this was because they were collecting data on viewership habits. Each customer profile must have been worth $5 or more, based on the surcharge amount.
(The phone line was useful for other things too, like ordering PPV/on-demand/premium channels through the menus directly, as opposed to calling them in through a 1-800 number.)