I’d like to get a netbook and be able to use the internet sparingly when out of the house (in places where free Wi-Fi isn’t available), but if this would cost me more than $10 a month, I’m not interested. Are there any ways to pay by the minute or anything similar in place of getting an expensive monthly plan? My cell phone is a pay as you go plan as I don’t use that much either.
Do you mean being able to access the internet at specific public places, or places open to the public, or just anywhere at all? If you mean just being able to go a coffee shop, most independent ones in my experience offer free wi-fi. Starbucks’ locations are AT*T hot spots, which would normally cost you something on a per-use basis. But you can avoid that cost by buying a Starbuck’s card, and then registering it online. You then use the value of the card to buy the stuff at Starbucks that you were going to buy anyway, so the net cost for wi-fi at Starbucks is effectively zero.
Otherwise, you have to look into mobile broadband. This is fairly expensive, and it doesn’t always work that great.
Almost any commercial WiFi hotspot has both monthly and pay-per-use plans.
Monthly is much cheaper (Boingo is $10/month for a laptop; $8/month for a cell phone) but the disadvantage is that you must use that provider.
If you go to a variety of places where the provider is different in each one, you’ll have to use pay-per-use…most of the ones I see when traveling through airports and hotels are on the order of $6-10/day. One strategy is to decide if you’ll be parking yourself in the same places when out of the house, and see what the options are there. If they all have the same commercial hotspot, you’ll save money using a monthly service.
Starbucks is still the best deal, in my opinion; it’s basically free for up to a couple hours a day. But of course lots of places are just free, period.
I agree with SoP that mobile broadband is pricey, but I think it’s pretty good. I use Sprint and am very satisfied. Speed depends on where I am but I usually get EVDO and pretty fast connections.
I fire up my netbook everywhere I go. You’d be surprised how often there are a dozen or more WiFi signals bouncing around, and frequently one or two of them are unsecured. So there you go, free! Of course, this is in and around downtown Chicago. In less densely packed areas, it might not work as well.
Also, if you get DSL for your home from AT&T, you can get free access to wireless at Starbucks. See here for more details.