T-Mobile announced that the webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ device for the U.S., will be available beginning on Sunday, March 14. HSPA+ is interesting because it could enable 4G LTE-like speeds using existing 3G infrastructure, as we found in an early hands-on test.
The carrier announced the device at MWC in February, and is also targeting late 2010 for broad national availability of HSPA+. Right now, it's still just for Philadelphia, although we should see several major cities light up with HSPA+ on both coasts well before the end of 2010, according to the carrier.
The webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick retails for $99.99 with a two-year contract and an Even More webConnect data plan. $60 per month gets you 5GB, while $30 gets you just 200MB; both charge 20 cents per megabyte over that. Another new option, Even More Plus webConnect, drops the annual contract and lowers the monthly prices by $10 in each case, but raises the up-front price of the modem.
This is all looking really interesting; only the 5GB cap will prove worrisome. It's bad enough on 3G, but as we move to faster networks, that will only become more limiting as time goes on--especially that T-Mobile is already touting the modem's ability to "download large files" and "watch video from a laptop on the go."
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