AT&T offers prepaid wireless broadband service

BEIJING, Nov. 24 (Xinhuanet) -- AT&T on Monday started a prepaid wireless broadband service to allow users pay by the day, by the week or by the month.

The new service allows customers to use its network for web surfing on laptop computers or netbooks without the obligation to sign a two-year contract with the operator.

Wireless broadband services allow users to connect their laptops to the Internet via the carriers 3G wireless network. These services have mostly been targeted at business users, according to media reports.

Pricing for the new AT&T service is the same as what Verizon Wireless, AT&T's main competitor, is charging.

Customers can pay 15 U.S. dollars for a daily access with a data usage cap of 75 megabytes (MB). A weekly plan costs 30 dollars and allows for 250MB of data usage. And the monthly plan is 50 dollars and offers 500MB of usage.

The service offers less data downloads than a typical monthly plan, which requires users to pay 60 dollars per month.

AT&T and its rivals have been pushing wireless laptop connections for consumers that already have cell phones, a service that customers would pay extra for.