If having internet at your home and office isn’t enough and you’d like to have internet in your car as well perhaps AT&T’s new product will appeal to you, though you can just as easily make a hotspot off your smartphone for sharing an internet connection with other passengers. Mobley is the carrier’s mobile hotspot solution for cars and it works with models as late as 1996 since it plugs into the car’s on-board diagnostics port, which has been standard on all vehicles since 1996.
It draws its power from the port and will only be turned on when the engine is running, it will power off automatically when the engine is cut. Mobley is capable of connecting up to five devices and works on AT&T’s LTE network.
Most new cars are connected anyway and don’t require such gadgets to work with the smartphones and tablets that we lug around with us everyday. Mobley enables cars that were bought before the mobile boom to have an in-car Wi-Fi network as well that passengers can appreciate.
Customers who are willing to sign a two year contract can get a Mobley for free from AT&T starting September 11th. Those who would rather purchase it outright will have to spend $100.
Service plan costs $20 for 1GB of data or $30 for 3GB. Existing AT&T subscribers can add Mobley to their Mobile Value Share plan for an additional $10 per month so that they’re able to use data allocated for their smartphone.