Starting July 17, AT&T will be offering its new 
data modem, the USBConnect 4G, for free to its customers with a 2-year agreement. Subscribers not wanting to be tied to a new contract can buy it for $90. Using it, a subscriber can gain unlimited Wi-Fi access at more than 24,000 AT&T Hotspots in the US, and e-mail and web browsing in more than 200 countries globally.
The modem is made for AT&T by Huawei. It supports HSPA/HSPA+ and Edge/GPRS protocols, along with Windows or Mac operating systems. It features a microSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards.
Although AT&T markets the modem as being ‘4G,’ it actually runs the HPSA+ protocol, a faster upgrade to 3G. Think 3.5 GIt provides for practical download speeds of up to 21Mbps, comparable if not actually slightly faster than true 4G.
AT&T is offering the modem with a two-year contract with 5GB of data for $50/month. There could be a $36 activation fee assessed, and an overage charge of $10 per GB. The carrier also offers three prepaid no-contract data plans for the modem; A daily 100MB plan costs $15, while a weekly 300MB plan costs $30 and a monthly 1GB plan is priced at $50.
