AT&T offers Netbooks with data service plans
Atlanta and Philadelphia residents can get discounted Netbooks with the purchase of AT&T's new "Internet at Home and On the Go" broadband services with a two-year contract.
The company announced the program earlier this week, and it will be immediately available in select stores.
With this program, customers can choose from a variety of Netbooks, including the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia, with discounted prices ranging from $50 to $250.
The service plan starts at $59.95 per month and features access to AT&T's 3G network and Wi-Fi network, which includes nearly 20,000 hotspots nationwide.
Apart from this, AT&T is also offering similar Netbooks at promotional prices with the purchase of its DataConnect plans in eight AT&T retail locations in the Philadelphia area. The plans includes 200MB of data usage for $40 per month and 5GB for $60 per month.
It's unclear what AT&T will do to make sure customers don't break the contract and keep the computer, as some of these Netbooks can cost up to $650 on the street.
It's also interesting that the company is offering this program in select areas only. I'd assume these are where its 3G network works well. If you've been to California or New York, you've probably been surprised at how bad AT&T's 3G signal is, both for voice and data. Personally, I have to turn my iPhone's 3G feature off to have a steady voice connection.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
