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It's hardly anti-consumer. For the price of a 3G iPad, you get an equivalent Wi-Fi only iPad and a MiFi that all your other devices can use. I would have bought this in a heartbeat over my 3G if it had been available in April.

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It's hard to sell a portability argument when you are tied to a dongle, even if it is small. That's a workaround for the network, not the consumer.

Was this option not available? It seems like the only convenience is the bundling here, or were Mifis never without contract before?

IIRC you could buy a no-contract MiFi but it was much more expensive.

I'm pretty sure Verizon's MiFi is contract only (and $60 for 5GB data). Virgin's just recently became unlimited, but I /think/ it's always been contract-free, it just used to be 5GB.

Virgin's got a public awareness problem (at least among the people I know), however, so for most people I bet the only known options were from Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, etc.

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