NetZero Announces 3G Enhancements and 4G LTE Rollout, Courtesy of Sprint
posted Sunday Jan 19, 2014 by Nicholas DiMeo
While FreedomPop may be offering extremely attractive deals to get customers to sign up to its service, there's other competition in the freemium mobile hotspot space, and one of the other sheriffs in town is NetZero. The company announced this week that it has deployed an even bigger broadband service that will cover over 276 million people, using Sprint's 3G network, and 4G rollout is expected very soon.
You might remember back in July when United Online announced a 4G ISP off the heels of a merger between NetZero and Juno. Well, now the company is using its previous agreement signed with Sprint to enhance the network and service even further. Those using previous WiMAX devices will still have coverage and support by NetZero moving forward but the former "insert this CD now for 100 hours of free internet" provider has now said it will be using its partnership with Sprint to rollout 4G LTE to its customers by the third quarter of this year. The expansion to 4G LTE now gives NetZero three solid options for service depending on the customer's location, and considering WiMAX is slowly fading in Sprint, that option can be very useful for those who won't be able to receive 4G LTE when it becomes available on the devices.
On the expansion, Rusty Taragan, president of NetZero, said,
Expanding the availability of our mobile broadband service over the Sprint network gives us a much more robust presence nationally, allowing us to offer coverage to millions of additional customers. There have always been a lot of great reasons to use NetZero Mobile Broadband and this expanded coverage adds another to the list. We launched our NetZero Mobile Broadband service in 2012 with a variety of value-priced monthly plans that did not require contracts or commitments and gave our customers the ability to change their plan at any time. And now, along with all those great features, we are able to serve customers in additional areas of the country that are covered by Sprint's 3G network. This new coverage expands our NetZero Mobile Broadband coverage to more than 276 million people.
NetZero currently offers both month-to-month and one-year commitment plans. Their free 200MB per month option is essentially a one-year trial, requires an upgrade at the end of a year, and doesn't come with a discount on a device. While the higher plans range from $10 to $50 a month for up to 4GB and is usually paired with a device for half-off, or sometimes, completely free.
