AT&T and car company BMW have signed an agreement called BMW Assist Services. AT&T will be providing the Bluetooth hands-free calling, speech recognition, GPS, emergency assistance, traffic and weather updates, news, etc. for BMW Assist services. BMW Assist is free for 4 years on BMW models 2007 and higher.

AT&T announced that they are planning to launch a service that directly competes with the Amazon.com Kindle.  The company is still in the planning stages for how to price the data around an e-reader.

Netbooks are being subsidized by AT&T for those who sign up for a 2 year agreement for a data plan.  The cost of a data plan is $60 per month with a 5GB data cap.  AT&T also launched a $0 plan which went over pretty well with consumers.

It is slightly unpredictable what devices to prepare data plan services for too.  AT&T Mobility’s President of emerging devices Glenn Lurie believes that devices such as digital cameras, personal navigation devices, multimedia players, e-readers, game devices, etc. will all have some sort of WiFi connection built in.  Lurie even suggested that some dog collars may have a WiFi device built in just in case the dog runs away and needs to be tracked.

Lurie is certain that AT&T will power the connection for a device that will rival the Amazon.com Kindle in the near future.  The Kindle uses Sprint’s 3G network without the consumer having to make an agreement with the telecommunications company itself.

[via PCWorld]

AT&T has been criticized for being slow at offering various consumer devices on their network.  This is why they have partnered with Jasper Wireless to have them provide consumer electronic devices such as GPS, cameras, laptops, and other mobile Internet devices on their network.  Jasper will handle the billing and the provisioning of these products.

The device that has mostly been dominating AT&T’s data networks is the Apple iPhone.  Jasper will be monitoring devices and service plans running on AT&T’s network going forward.  “By doing this with them, we’re going to be able to do this very, very quickly,” stated President of Emerging Devices at AT&T Glenn Lurie.

When signing up for AT&T services, credit checks are made and phone numbers have to be received or ported.  Jasper will be setting up pre-paid options for consumers that would like to get on to AT&T’s network.  Jasper will be AT&T’s exclusive partner over the next several years.