When's the Beta - First, let's start by making the official time and date of the Beta the start of this Blog in what will be and EPIC moment in DICE's PC History! The PC Beta begins this Thursday, January 28th at approximately 6pm CET, 12pm EST, and 9am PST time!!!!!!! :-D
 
Where to Get It - The Client will be downloadable from server partner websites and Steam starting at the above listed time at a file size of 1.5GB. Here's a hyper-link reminder http://bit.ly/4GJk2a on which retailers will provide PC Beta access through pre-ordering.
 
Why we're Having a Beta - The Beta is happening for many reasons, like testing the infrastructure, hosting stability, and gameplay tuning (FOV, Weapon Balance, etc...) that no amount of internal testing could provide better than real world exposure. This means there will also be times of choppiness, lag, disconnects, CTDs or other issues a Beta version of any MP game would have. We'll have feedback methods similar to the PS3 Beta as well to ensure your input is gathered and heard.

Authentication by DVD - You can authenticate by putting the DVD in the drive. If you choose this method, you must have the DVD available every time you want to play. With this method, SecuROM will not go online at all. You can then play the single-player campaign 100% offline.
 
Authentication by going online - You can also choose to authenticate by going online once. If so, this happens the first time that you start the actual game. You will be asked for permission. If you allow it, SecuROM will talk to a master server, which counts on how many computers your serial key is currently in use. When the installation has been authenticated online once, SecuROM will no longer go online. You can then play the single-player campaign 100% offline, without needing the DVD. Also, you can play multiplayer online without needing the DVD. You can have the game authenticated on up to 10 machines at the same time. One authentication is valid for 10,000 days. Thus, if you authenticated once on launch day - March 2nd, 2010 – that authentication will be valid until July 18th, 2037.
 
Online authentication … what about de-authentication? - You can de-authenticate the game. De-authentication means to return one authentication to the “pool” of available activations (which started with 10 available).