I think we may have talked about this topic back in May. I am looking into purchasing a mobile WI-FI hotspot for my I Pad. Right now I just can’t manage paying for a cellular account with AT&T at maybe $30 a month. My way of understanding this technology is I broke it down into 2 parts; the hardware or base unit and the data plan. I am hoping this will be cheaper than a cellular plan. I would own the mobile unit. I would only use the data plan when the tap is on so to speak so I wouldn’t have to pay anything when not in use. I am still trying to get a grasp on the terminology. If I buy the base unit from a retail store it would be up to me to choose a data plan. This is provided I don’t purchase the unit from Verizon or AT&T or another provider. Buying the base unit may be the easy part. I found one on buy.com today for $29 marked down from $79. The hard part would be to choose the data plan. It would be nice to just go to “Data plans are Us”. So to you who are knowledgeable about such things I invite you to put forth your best arguments on this topic.