After a slow start, financial advisers and wealth managers are quickly warming up to Apple’s iPad (see our coverage on the iPad for financial advisors and wealth managers). Now that the product has been available for sale for six months, advisers have seen and experienced the unique interface the tablet device offers.
Because of its tablet form factor, the iPad is proving to be a powerful mobile device. It can be used while standing up, walking, or seated in a comfortable chair (and in an airplane seat, too, but those are far from comfortable), things that users of laptops and netbook computers find more difficult to do.
Since June, Apple has been selling a 3G wireless version of the iPad, but AT&T has been the exclusive service carrier for the device. That doesn’t excite many advisers due to AT&T’s reputation for spotty network reliability along with a monthly data plan requirement. In addition, iPad’s 3G wireless connection cannot be shared with any other mobile devices or netbook computers (without violating Apple’s terms of use, a.k.a. jailbreaking).
New 3G Wireless Options
Coming later this month, iPad owners will have a new option to use their device with the 3G wireless network. Verizon Wireless will start selling iPads on October 28 bundled with a MiFi 2200 mobile Wi-Fi hotspot device. Pricing for Verizon’s iPad/MiFi bundle is the iPad retail price (starting at $499) with an additional cost of $130 for the MiFi device.
A big advantage to Verizon’s offering is that there is no monthly commitment required for 3G wireless access. Data plans are offered in the pay-as-you-go format, priced according to the amount of data transfer desired.
Verizon’s data plans are $20 for 1GB, $35 for 3GB, or $50 for 5GB. All plans expire 30 days after activation.
Verizon is not the only provider to offer pay-as-you-go 3G data plans. Virgin Mobile also sells its own MiFi device for $149 and offers two data plans: $10 for 1GB (expires after 10 days), or $40 for unlimited data (expires after 30 days). I bought the Virgin Mobile MiFi 2200 device and will write about my experience with it in a future post.
So for advisers looking to adopt the iPad while avoiding getting locked in to a monthly wireless contract with AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Virgin Mobile both offer attractive alternatives to staying connected on the go and in control of data plan costs.
