Will Wireless Carriers Drop Netbooks In 2010 For Phones/Tablets?

Chance Stevens 24 December 2009 51 views View Comments

In the US, carriers like Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile have tried to get more netbooks in the hands of new and existing customers by offering reduced prices. The downside is that the amount of web you can browse with the restrictive plans they make you commit to can be a non-starter for many. After all, many of us use 5GB of bandwidth before lunch and could never imagine paying $20,000 in overages because we decided to stream a football game while we were offsite and couldn’t find a good Wi-fi signal.

With so much being done with the release of new Android headsets and rumors about Verizon getting the iPhone it seems like carriers may just stop promoting netbooks in 2010 and focus on where the real money is. You may not be able to get someone to pay $60 for a 5GB cap on a computer but you can definitely get them to say $100 per month for unlimited broadband access and some minutes on a smaller device.

Geeks, media executives, and content creators are all up in arms about the idea of an Apple tablet. They hope it will usher in a new Renaissance as the iPod did for music and movies. If the hype is there and carriers have to decide to push a netbook or a tablet or smartphone it seems like netbooks would get left in the dirt.

Netbook prices are coming down with the new Pine Trail netbooks being released. The appeal of getting a netbook for $199 when you can buy it outright for under $300 is very low especially when you know you’re locked in for 24 months. I change netbooks about once every 6 months so there’s no way that would work well for me at all. There are two ways this could go as we get into the new year. Wireless carriers will start promoting netbooks for free just like they do with cell phones to get people to try the service and lock them in for two years. If not, I anticipate the concept disappearing as the focus shifts to more profitable priorities.

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