AT&T USBConnect Force 4G (E368)

I purchased this to use with AT&Ts prepaid data plans on my laptop. It does come with a pre-installed sim card. You need internet access to set it up - it installs software on your laptop from the usb device and then does an update. Next you open an account and pick your plan and pay with a credit card. I think it would be ideal if you wanted to get on the internet when you could not get wifi to check your email or Facebook but could get an AT&T signal. The problem is I only wanted to use this in some foreign ports on a cruise. What I discovered was I would have to buy a domestic 30 day prepaid plan costing $50 for 1 gb (that I did not need) to get the 30 day minimum international prepaid AT&T plan costing $30 for 120mb of data. Thus it would cost me $80 for what I wanted to do. As costly as wifi is on a cruise ship I think I had better go that route! Now in the event you have AT&T phone service maybe you don't have to buy the domestic prepaid too. I'm confused on that but spent most of the day on the phone with AT&T and am not calling them again. I will probably not even use this thing.

The modem worked fine. Even with one to two bars it works decent. The prepaid prices seem a bit much however. A prepaid monthly usage is $50 for 1GB, $30 for a week OR 300MB, I only did the 1 day (or 100MB) for $15 to try out the modem. Also, I think others mention this: Your time starts once you pay for it. So if you buy the $15 prepaid one on Friday at 11:00 AM, it will no longer be valid anytime Saturday after 11:00 AM. Don't buy it ahead of time or you'll be wasting your pesos. I let my mom and daughter play around to see how long it would last for the day. My mom surfed and checked email for hours until she just got tired. By 11:00 PM my daughter hit youtube and drained the rest of the MBs within 20 mins.I just think if I were to use this modem, I would look into mobile data share rather than buying prepaid time since I have cell phone service with these rascals and it may be a better deal.

The product works great. The body can be rotated relative to the USB port which is a great feature for storage without having to remove the device but it is a relatively loose orientation; meaning if you rotate to 45 degrees for example it can easily flop down. The body is slim but it does interfere slightly with my power cord and that is why I notice the orientation. The body seems to act like an antenna and that is why I think maintaining the orientation should degrade the rating slightly. In all I like the device and I would buy again.

Hardware works with sim card, cricket. Problem is win10 defaults to static IP on connection. Manually change to DHCP, connected at hsp+ speeds. DSL here is 380k max, so this is my lifeline to connect to work from home.

I purchased a similar USB for my laptop before it came with simcard in it this one I had to go to Att and get a SIM card and they inserted and setup the account which cost me an activation fee that I didn't have before I set up my own account and everything so I was not pleased with that at all because I was going out of town and that was an inconvenience to me

Only USB Aircard I could get that is compatible with my Cisco USB-modem compatible router. Cisco provides very dated guidance on what USB modems are compatible. Could not get 4G from AT&T so speed was substantially less than a nearby Verizon Tethered phone. Connection was solid and data rates were acceptable just not the best.

I have not used it yet but it appears to be what I need as a replacement to continue to use my grandfather AT&T unlimited data plan. AT&T is no longer providing a laptop connect device that's compatible with my plan only providing a 5G device with hotspot capabilities like Beam or Element.

AT&T no longer sells this unit directly but the package did include everything needed to activate it with AT&T. The data packages are terrible, $50/mo per 1 GB of data! Device is locked to AT&T.