Avis Budget Group Keeps Up with the Joneses with Wi-Fi

The Avis Budget Group has every intention of keeping up with the Joneses.

The Parsippany, N.J.-based car rental company has announced that Avis Car Rental and Budget Car Rental customers can now rent portable Wi-Fi devices in 12 European countries.

The deal provides customers with access to 1GB of data per day without the fear of incurring roaming charges when traveling throughout Europe.

Last month, Auto Europe announced a similar offer for U.S. citizens only – MiFi units with any car rental of three days or longer in the UK, France, Italy and Germany for $5 a day to access data.

Auto Europe is using the Huawei Mobile WiFi E5331 model that permits connectivity to up to eight Wi-Fi-enabled devices up to 30 feet from the portable router, via a secure password-protected connection.

Avis and Budget users can connect up to five devices at the same time, including smartphones, tablets, laptops and other Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets. The units offer a download speed of 21.6 Mbps in order to conduct video conferences, access documents, surf the web, stream movies, and access social media sites.

"Our new mobile Wi-Fi units are compact and portable so that they can be taken out of the car and into the hotel, business meeting, restaurant, campsite or even the beach — all with uninterrupted connectivity," Larry De Shon, president, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Avis Budget Group, said in a statement. "It's a hassle-free and cost-effective way for travelers to stay connected — and another way we 'put the customer first.'"

Mobile Wi-Fi is available in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The service can be rented by requesting it at the counter.