Chrysler's in-car WiFi, Autonet Mobile, has been around for a little while now, and Walt Mossberg has helpfully reviewed it for us. He found the service (which is basically an in-car 3G WiFi router) to be great for email and basic web surfing, but it was too slow to handle anything much more demanding, like streaming videos. Speed test results ranged from 100 kbps to 500 kbps, with an average of 400-450 kbps... pretty average for 3G speeds, and Walt says the connection never dropped. On the plus side, it appears that Chrysler is willing to mount the ruggedized router in the trunk of any car -- not just their models -- which is great news if, like most people, you have no intention of driving a Chrysler around. The Autonet box runs $499 ($399 for the holidays) with a one-year contract and monthly fees of about $29. That may seem expensive, but can you put a price on your kids checking Facebook rather than asking "Are we there yet" every twelve seconds? Hit the read link for the full review.

The press release is pretty low on facts, but Autonet Mobile, the quirky car-centric ISP / EV-DO MNVO, has just announced that it will now allow customers to download music, movies and games to its routers and access them from any WiFi device. Of course, Autonet's EV-DO / WiFi routers don't have any built-in storage that we know of, so it looks like you're pretty much just downloading all this stuff to your laptop -- which isn't exactly press release-worthy, so we're assuming they forget to mention something that would actually make this interesting, like a content partnership or network storage. It's either that or CES PR fever is starting to hit a couple days early, but we'll optimistically read "passengers can access their personalized stored content via the unit's simple user interface" as meaning something substantial -- at least until we see this thing in action next week.

There's not really a lot to say about a car-based broadband router that's unplugged and sitting on a table, but if you were curious for whatever reason how this new Autonet Mobile thing looks in the flesh, then we've got you covered. We'll let you know if we somehow manage to get it up and running, but for now all we know is that the box feels solid enough for vehicle use, and that's about it. Peep the read link for a few more angles.

We always kind of thought it went without saying that the ISP we took with us in our car was whichever network powered our EV-DO or UMTS / HSDPA card -- well, not anymore. At least not according to Autonet Mobile, a new company claiming to be the first car-ISP; that is to say, Autonet is only concerned with getting your car (and the devices in it) online (although we really don't see why you couldn't just use one of these as an in-home backup connection). The Autonet wireless unit, which will run for $399, serves up the in-car WiFi using what they're claiming is Verizon's any EV-DO and/or HSDPA network; at the outset they claim Autonet will provide service on up to 95 percent of US roads for $50 a month when it's launched this spring on AVIS and for consumers. Eyes on the road, people!