Start-up expected to announce deal for Wi-Fi in Avis rental cars
To connect to a high-speed wireless network from a car, consumers pretty much have been limited to one choice: rigging a laptop computer with a special modem and subscribing to a pricey, and sometimes temperamental, wireless service.
But Autonet Mobile, a start-up wireless technology company based in San Francisco, was expected to announce this week that it had reached an agreement with Avis Rent A Car System to provide an optional wireless access point — better known as a Wi-Fi hot spot — to Avis customers in the United States by March. For an additional $10.95 a day, Avis will issue to motorists a notebook-size portable device that plugs into the power supply of a car and delivers a high-speed Internet connection for passengers.
For now, the service is intended for business travelers. But Autonet sees its service as appealing to families traveling with children, although its unit is expected to cost $399 — about twice as much as current cellular card technology — plus $49 a month for service.
A mobile Wi-Fi hot spot that lets laptops and other hand-held computers link to the Internet without cables represents an important step toward what technology experts call the “connected car” — a vehicle in which passengers’ devices and the car’s essential systems are always online.
“I think this is a precursor to the connected car,” said Roger Entner, a wireless telecommunications analyst at Ovum, a consulting firm based in London. “This shows us a glimpse of where we will be in the future.”