NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband Review: A Travel Must Have

You know what stinks? Not having internet service when you go on vacation! I know, I know you’re on vacation. You’re supposed to leave it all behind and relax. Well, when you’re a blogger and in social media, you can’t do that. Not really, It is REALLY hard to completely disconnect. Besides, sometimes, it’s nice to be able to go online when you are away from home.

Everybody knows that my family and I like to travel. Renting a cabin is our home away from home of choice. Sometimes, the cabins we rent have wifi but most of the time, we opt for the lower priced rentals and many of those don’t have wifi availability. And some just have really slow and crappy connections. And since I need to be able to connect and even the kids sometimes have to do school work to make up for being absent, we need reliable internet service, even on vacation. But going out to a wifi enabled restaurant doesn’t work for a lot of people. So we usually end up using the Mobile Broadband service on our phone. But we go as a large group of people and that can be a real hassle. We don’t always do everything together and I don’t want to leave my phone behind so others can have internet service.

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That when a service like NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband comes in super handy. I’ve been checking out different mobile broadband options and the ones I found prior to NetZero were pretty expensive if you don’t need to use it often. And since we only really use it when we travel, their cost didn’t add up for us.

NetZero has really affordable options! You can even try their LightSpeed service (which also conserves data compared to WarpSpeed) for up to a year FREE!  Plans start at $9.95 per month with 500 MB and go up to $49.95 for Platinum. That is comparable to other services and you get 4GB service with the Platinum plan. The part I like best is that there are no activation fees, contracts or overage charges. So if we are going to be traveling, I can start the service and use it as I need it. I don’t have to sign up for a 2 year contract like with the other mobile broadband devices.

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NetZero 4G Mobile Broadband is available in over 80 cities across the U.S.  The 4G service isn’t in my town, yet, so I won’t really be using it here at home.  But if it becomes available, I’ll be able to use it if our internet goes out, when guests want to be online without giving out my regular router password, for the kids internet access and when we are out and about. The device is really small so I can toss it in my purse and use it when we are away from home to save on our phones data plan. That is another big factor in us purchasing a mobile broadband device. And the devices themselves are pretty affordable too. You can get a mobile hotspot that supports up to 8 different wifi enabled devices at once for around $99 or you can get a Stick that only supports one device at a time, like your laptop, for around $49. Pay once, purchase a plan and that’s it. Pretty cool! It’s compact and durable, too, with a battery life of up to 6 hours.

The device is SUPER SIMPLE to set up and begin using. You, literally, just turn it on, enter the password it gives you into your wifi enabled device, connect and begin using. I like things that adhere to the K.I.S.S. method. (keep it simple, stupid.) That works perfectly for this tired mommy brain of mine.  In fact, here is a little video of me getting started with it. Quick and simple. Lovely!

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Disclosure: I am part of the Mom It Forward blogger network. Mom It Forward and NetZero partnered in support of this campaign. NetZero compensated me for participation in this campaign. However, all thoughts and opinions are my own.