Normally something like this would sound rather suspicious to me. But as it turns out, Virgin Mobile is really offeringpay as you go Wi-Fi! This means no more bothering with those $60 mobile broadband bills when you are not even using it. Just grab a $10 or $20 prepaid bit and surf — it’s apparently just that easy.

Now for the really hard part: buying the service and device! Seriously, I have been all over this Web site and while it spends a lot of time talking about how easy it is to use, it apparently thinks that I am not in the market for one.

Finally, after going to the phone section, of all places… I found out via tiny little text that the device was available only at Best Buy in “Late June.” Wow, all that just to get the correct information, huh? I mean, the entire FAQ is dedicated to talking about the plan while completely neglecting to mention where one will eventually be able to buy the USB dongle in the first place. Nice job guys; you just failed marketing 101.

Now for the mixed bag for me as a user. Despite Virgin officially offering zero support for OS X and Linux (foolish as Sprint does despite the guide being REALLY outdated), I did some checking and I’m 99% sure it will work pretty easily. Like so many EVDO devices though, it might take a VM of XP to get it activated. But after that, Ubuntu has a great GUI for mobile broadband. I am sure that Mac has some options there, as well. Again, Sprint supports OS X nicely. The problem is lazy mobile providers, in my honest opinion.