In a move that acknowledges customers who prefer prepaid plans, Verizon Wireless has launched a new service that offers several data plans to access mobile broadband. For the most voracious users, $80 per month (defined as 30 days) gets them 5GB of data; 1GB costs $50 a month. Verizon is also offering 300MB for $30, which expires in a week’s time, and a daily rate of 100MB for $15. Prepaid mobile broadband usage is not available on any PC cards; the service is only available on ExpressCards, USB modems, Intelligent Mobile Hotspots and built-in mobile broadband on some netbooks.
Virgin Mobile USA (which is owned by Sprint Nextel) offers its own, less expensive prepaid mobile broadband plan, dubbed Broadband2Go. The user purchases a mobile hot spot device or plug-and-play USB device and signs up for one of two plans: $40/month for unlimited data or $10 for 100MB for 10 days. Clearwire also just launched its Rover mobile unlimited data plan — only in its 4G markets — for $5 per day, $20 per week or $50 per month. For consumers in 3G markets, prepaid mobile brand T-Mobile has an equally attractive prepaid plan.
