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NetZero gives subscribers free data to share through Facebook, doles out friendship 1GB at a time

Posted by admin in News on October 9, 2012

The classic trick to spurring early adoption of a data hotspot service is to share it with others, and NetZero has every intention of being as giving as its precursors. Its new Data Share program lets those who own of the company’s WiMAX devices give away up to 1GB of data every month through Facebook, spread across five friends at 200MB each. Apart from needing NetZero hardware in a coverage area, there’s no financial strings attached — neither the sender nor the recipient needs to adopt more than the free, 200MB per month they already have just for showing up. The real dilemma is managing just who gets the data in the 4G provider’s first come, first served approach to the sharing link that hits friends’ social news feeds. NetZero is no doubt hoping that the ubiquity of the giveaway (and a half-off device sale during October) will put an early end to any rivalries.

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Filed under: Wireless, Networking, Mobile

NetZero gives subscribers free data to share through Facebook, doles out friendship 1GB at a time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 06:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NetZero launches ’4G’ wireless service, we go hands-on

Posted by admin in News on March 19, 2012

Remember NetZero? Today the company announced that it’s launching NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband, a wireless service rolling out in 80 US cities and offering value-priced monthly data plans without activation fees, contracts, commitments or overage charges. Customers can chose between two levels of service — Lightspeed (up to 1Mbps down / 384Kbps up) to conserve data and Warpspeed (up to 10Mbps down / 1.5Mbps up) for maximum performance — and can switch back and forth by simply logging into NetZero’s website (this can take up to 15 minutes). Five monthly data plans are available:

Free, $0, 200MB (limited to Lighspeed and limited to one year)
Basic, $9.95, 500MB (limited to Lighspeed)
Plus, $19.95, 1GB
Pro, $34.95, 2GB
Platinum, $49.95, 4GB

Two devices are offered — the NetZero 4G Stick ($49.95 + shipping) is a Windows and OS X-compatible USB modem and the NetZero 4G Hotspot ($99.95 + shipping) is an eight device-capable WiFi hotspot with an LCD and a 2200mAh battery.

So far, so good — NetZero is becoming an MVNO. Yet strangely, there’s no mention in any of the PR as to which network the company is using. We test drove NetZero’s new wireless service over the weekend using the WiFi hotspot and figured out that it’s using Clearwire‘s WiMAX network. In fact NetZero’s 4G Stick is identical to the Clear 4G Mobile USB modem (manufactured by Ubee), and its 4G Hotspot is the same as the Clear Spot Apollo (a rather bulky unit made by Gemtek)– see the FCC links below and read on for our impressions after the break.

Gallery: NetZero 4G Hotspot hands-on