 Netzero Lets You Share Bandwidth on Facebook As Dial-Up Company Takes Aim at Free Wireless Data Tuesday Oct 09 2012 08:48 EDT We've noted that there's several companies exploring pricing models that include base free wireless tiers, and one of the earliest is a famliar name: NetZero. The company formerly known for dial up service back in March announced that they've partnered with Clearwire to start offering WiMax service, and this week announced users can give away up to 1 GB of data to Facebook friends. The offerings are no contract, but require that you buy either a $100 HotSpot or $50 USB stick with a NetZero logo (you can be fashionably ironic). The pricing for the service comes in five flavors: •Free, $0, 200MB •Basic, $9.95, 500MB •Plus, $19.95, 1GB •Pro, $34.95, 2GB •Platinum, $49.95, 4GB The free and $10 tiers clock in with speeds of "up to" 1Mbps down and 384 Kbps up, while the rest of the offerings deliver "up to" 10 Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up. There's no throttling or overages, users who reach their cap either pony up for the same bucket of bytes or they remain disconnected until the next billing cycle. One big catch: you only can be on their free plan for a year, after which you must sign up for paid service. It's yet another entry in a crowded no contract data market, though again it's the first to offer users a free option -- something you'll see a lot of this year. |
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junk?Might as well turn on tethering feature in my phone and use better speeds on LTE and use it in more places, even outside metro areas on 3g | |
|  |  SeleniaGentoo Convert Premium Member join:2006-09-22 Fort Smith, AR kudos:3 ·Cox HSI
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Selenia
Premium Member
2012-Oct-9 11:33 am
Re: junk?Not to mention LTE with a 5GB cap on AT&T(with tethering) was $45 a month when I got my newest toy this year. I ended up signing up for 3GB for $30 because I don't use more than that, with all the wifi generally around me. So, I get to pay $5/month more for 1 less gig on Clearwire's shitty network with an almost non-existant foitprint? Go to hell Netzero!! Seems you were better off dead with the days of dialup  | |
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Re: junk?clearwire is in debt from investing in wimax and is looking to pay them off by getting players like netzero to resell their services, especially after comcast, twc ditched them because they offered no real value to customer at inflated prices.
I don't see how they will get off with LTE. And those who live in west coast or east cost have an option to use their cable's free metro wifi. Chicago and other large cities in Midwest or South don't have it yet but I believe they have plans on launching wifi. Mayor of Chicago announced new plans for city-wide wifi. First announcement a few years ago never materialized but this time it should. | |
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UselessBoth this product and the one from FreedomPop are useless to most folks. The fact is, WiMAX has very limited availability, and its footprint isn't being increased, so, if you can't get a signal now, you never will. Sure, Clearwire is going to eventually launch LTE, but that isn't happening yet, and the current gear being offered can't use it anyway. So there is no reason whatsoever for anyone outside of a WiMAX area to even look at these offerings right now, and, even if I could get service, I wouldn't want to pay much for the hardware, since I have to wonder how viable these services are in the long term with such limited potential for growth right now. | |
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Re: Uselessits mostly marketed to folks who don't care about speed, who only care about price, wanna a very easy set up and don't understand data cap limitations. Still those folks are better off with 1.5 or 3.0mb dsl.
These so "value" products are sometimes more expensive in the end. If you buy groceries, you're better off buying at target or walmart than Costco's or Sam's Club.
If you're trading in stock market, you're better off picking up mutual funds that cost commission but perform better and give better return than so called "free no-load" poorly performing funds. Not all of them are like that but most of them are.
Or in case of college students, those who can't afford to pay now and depend on financial aid, will most of the time get little grant and pay the leftover with student loans. Even if they pay off after as soon as 10 years, their TC for bachelor is gonna end up probably more than of their rich folks. I mean isn't this lovely when your tuition cost $30,000 a year, but most on-campus jobs are gonna offer you no more than $10 per hour? | |
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 norbert26 Premium Member join:2010-08-10 Warwick, RI |
does not make sensesince it piggy backs on clearwire if you can get them you can get clearwire. in that case go with the clear $34.99 1.5 down / 500mb up tier unlimited or $49.99 3/6 mb down / 1.0 up plan or some of the pucks have 1.5 up. the lowr tier is actully provisioned at 1.8 down and the upper tier can go as high as 12 or a bit more down. As far as the free (net zero) option its a puny joke and not even worth bothering with hardware. | |
|  |  TransmasterDon't Blame Me I Voted For Bill and Opus join:2001-06-20 Cheyenne, WY |
Re: does not make senseI have always loved the name Netzero, you get what you pay for. | |
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anonymous86
Anon
2012-Oct-9 7:18 pm
WOWWow 1gb....someone stop me from having a heart attack out of excitement. | |
|  NJxxxJonDSLR'er from the 56k days. Premium Member join:2005-10-22 00000 |
NJxxxJon
Premium Member
2012-Oct-9 10:08 pm
CDs laying aroundI bet this is why facebook is slow...  I bet I could find some old NETZERO snail mail CDs laying around somewhere! | |
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How about .. |