AT&T Announces 4G USB Card & Mobile WiFi Hotspot

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Just the other day, we told you about some comments from an AT&T executive who had promised that the company’s first LTE phone, along with the LTE USB dongle and the LTE mobile WiFi hotspot would be out before the end of the year. Now, AT&T has just announced the release date and pricing for the laptop card and mobile wireless hotspot. You can expect them in less than a week!

AT&T announced today in a press release that their “4G” USB mobile bandwidth card and the mobile hotspot will both be available in less than 7 days, on August 21. You can expect them to show up in both AT&T retail stores, as well as on AT&T’s website.

You’ll have a choice between the AT&T USBConnect Momentum 4G or the AT&T Mobile Hotspot Elevate 4G. Both have both LTE and HSPA+ connectivity, which is actually kind of nice because when you are outside of LTE network coverage, you can fall back on the HSPA+ speeds, which is still considerably faster than a traditional 3G network.

The data plan for these two 4G devices will be $50 for 5GB of data per month, with each additional gigabyte costing $10. Not bad, considering.

Also, if you’re currently using the AT&T USBConnect Adrenaline, a recently released USB wireless dongle from AT&T, you’ll be able to upgrade that device to 4G connectivity for free. It has an LTE chipset included and after August 26, you’ll be able to upgrade it to LTE functional via a software update.

Right now, AT&T’s LTE is in a very small number of cities. But, it’s sure to continue to expand and grow. If AT&T pushes it out like Verizon has expanded their 4G LTE network, it should be covering most of the nation in no time. Pricing on either the USB dongle or the mobile hotspot was not announced.