AT&T wants to sell you better coverage

As you know, I’m no fan of AT&T.

With that in mind I couldn’t help sharing this piece of news: AT&T is now offering customers the ability to pay up and purchase a 3G Microcell to use in their homes (since no-one it seems actually gets descent service at home). The device supports both voice and data usage (presumably the latter is only marginally useful since most consumers with data devices connect to their home wifi networks in house).

For the privilege of better coverage at home (and the added benefit to AT&T of presumably offloading traffic from their cellular network to customer’s internet providers) you’ll get charged $150 for the device (ok – that seems fair) and $20 additional monthly service fee (what?!? – an additional monthly charge for helping AT&T clear traffic from its network, shift cost to your internet provider and extending coverage where Verizon and other carriers already have it?).

Rock on AT&T!

(hat tip Jeff Kohn for the pointer to the news)