More details on Amazon's Fire HD $49 4G-for-a-year program
Last week, when I wrote How to decide: should you buy a big Kindle Fire HD or an iPad?, I mentioned that I wasn't sure what happens to the price of 4G after the end of the first year of the $49 4G deal that Amazon is offering.
Well, it turns that out reader Bruce decided to look into it. Using incredible detective skills (he contacted Amazon's customer service), Bruce came up with the definitive answers on the deal.
Bruce was nice enough to share with me the letters he got back from Amazon, and I present them to you (slightly edited to remove the extraneous fluff).
According to Amazon:
The $49.99 data package is only available for the first year of service. The data plans after one year will change accordingly to the plans offered by the service provider AT&T.
At this time, there are no special data plans offered by AT&T for Kindle Fire HD 8.9" after the first year. AT&T provides their own data plans and all this information has been updated in the AT&T website.
For your convenience here's the link for the comparison of the plans provided by AT&T.
Bruce also asked if he's locked into AT&T. Amazon replied, "Your Amazon.com account is not locked to AT&T."
Although we'd pretty much assumed the Kindle Fire HD would connect to mobile WiFi hotspots, Bruce reached out to Amazon and got some official clarification:
Yes, you can do that, so long as your cell phone uses 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, on 2.4ghz frequency, you could use it as a hotspot and provide access for the Kindle.
Kindle Fire supports public and private Wi-Fi networks or hotspots that uses that frequency, or enterprise networks with support for WEP, WPA and WPA2 security using password authentication.
Kindle does not support connecting to ad-hoc (or peer-to-peer) Wi-Fi networks.
Official Helpie McHelpypants Acknowledgement
We have an amazing community here at ZDNet and while we've occasionally had some disagreements in the comments area, the readers here at ZDNet are incredibly resourceful in all areas of tech.
I want to encourage the sort of information sharing Bruce did, and so I'm introducing our official ZDNet DIY-IT Helpie McHelpypants Acknowledgement (for legal reasons, we can't call it an "award").
If you provide some helpful information that I use in an article, or answer a question we've been exploring here in DIY-IT, you can be nominated to become a Helpie McHelpypants Acknowledgement Recipient, which basically means your name goes on on the Helpie McHelpypants Page of Fame.
See also: Official Helpie McHelpypants Acknowledgement Page of Fame
Now, I can't guarantee I'll see everything helpful posted in comments, or even get to read all your emails, but I'll try to notice great contributions and recognize them in on the Page of Fame.
Special thanks to Bruce and to all of you future Helpie McHelpypants Acknowledgement recipients. Have fun DIY-ITing and go be helpie.