AT&T announced it was offering a promotional deal to sell netbooks through its own stores, offering netbooks for $49.99 in Atlanta and $99.99 in Philadelphia.
Customers have to sign up for a two-year contract with a charge of $60 per month to get AT&T wireless broadband access. Customers have to buy a home and wireless broadband service plan for the $49.99 netbook--AT&T does not sell home broadband service in the Philadelphia area, hence the price difference.
The deal is for an Acer Aspire One netbook, which has a 8.9-inch display, 1GB of memory, and a 160GB hard drive. The package includes 200MB of data usage per month. If customers want to jump up to a 5GB limit, the price of the netbook jumps from $49.99 to $99.
Previously, AT&T had sold netbooks through RadioShack, which announced in December that it would start selling a $99 Acer netbook tied with a two-year wireless data contract from AT&T. AT&T has made it known that it is banking on the subsidy model not only for netbooks but for other electronics as well.
The subsidized netbook market is heating up. Verizon Wireless recently confirmed that it would launch a subsidized netbook, though it has not released many details on its plan yet.
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