Hopefully this is a sign of things to come, as Australian mobile company Telstra will be giving laptops away to business users who sign up for a three-year contract for mobile data service. According to the Sydney Morning Herald,
“The company has released a new plan for business customers — only those with an ABN — which offers them a laptop and wireless broadband card at no upfront cost if they sign a 36-month contract.
As well as the laptop, customers will get 1 gigabyte of data usage for $99 [$95 US] a month, although they must also pay 30 cents for each additional megabyte downloaded over their monthly quota.
Telstra’s standard 1GB data download plan on its Next G wireless network costs $84.95, so customers will effectively be paying $14.05 a month for the laptop – $505.80 over the three-year contract.”
This offer will apparently run until the end of June and, although the makes and models of the laptops aren’t yet available, they’ll be ones that normally sell for up to $700 Australian ($674 US).