Join Date: May 2000
Location: Houston, TX, USA
Programs: UA 1K, AA Lifetime Platinum, DL Platinum, Honors Diamond, Bonvoy Titanium, Hertz Platinum
Posts: 7,969
Verizon used to have a deal with free embedded 3G modems in certain Dell laptops: you could activate on a standard $60/month unlimited plan or buy day passes as needed for something like $10-15/day. But Verizon seemed to shut down the day pass option at some point, and you couldn't get anyone to even admit that the deal used to exist, even though it was used as a selling point of the laptop.
I think that the carriers offering high-speed wireless data want to get people locked into the monthly service plans for the very same reason that you don't want one: most people need it only when traveling, and if they could pay for it only when needed, there wouldn't be nearly as much revenue.