Hit the Road with Avis, You’re Connected

Autonet Mobile and Avis

Autonet Mobile and Avis Rent-a-Car are cooking up an Internet connection that will give users a rolling Wi-Fi hotspot while riding an Avis vehicle.

This will start in March, and for $10.95 a day (on top of your car rental, of course) Avis will let you use a portable device that delivers high-speed Internet connection; true high-speed connection, Avis swears, not the sluggish and crappy type. Autonet Mobile’s technology claims to have fine-tuned its interface with the 3G cellular network and will work in all major metropolitan areas and in about 95 percent of the U.S. The Autonet system makes the car a Wi-Fi hotspot, so a user may pull off the road, sit under a tree and connect outside the car.

The “connected car” is initially intended for business travelers. But this early, Autonet is already eyeing families like yours and mine who travel together and want to stay connected. You don’t even have to rent an Avis car; you buy the Autonet device.

Autonet Mobile is set to be formally announced at next week’s CES 2007 in Las Vegas.

[Via: NewYorkTimes.com]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.