Going Mobile

Testing HSDPA for Daily Internet.

Been testing HSDPA as my Internet connection for the last couple of days. So far seems to work ok, a bit slower than the WiFi at home but good enough for your average Internet use. Where it needs to fall back from UMTS to GPRS it gets too slow for most web browsing (result of the darned AJAX hype) but probably still usable for light email access and so on.

Nice thing of course is that now my broadband connection goes with me everywhere. Telcos have been talking about "convergence" for who knows how long now, ten years? The problem with them is the hardware, not really usable for what I need the Internet for. Everybody's drooling over their iPhones but my mobile, it's my laptop, all 2.5kgs of it with full keyboard and a 14" screen.

As a side effect of the convergence vision what the telco operators have provided is finally a usable fast-enough network. No more searching for WiFi hotspots. The broadband connection goes with me to all my favorite cafes and restaurants, the train, the bus, into the car, to the beach (!). Well ok, UMTS is not everywhere yet but still a lot better than hunting for random WiFi spots.

Installing couldn't be much easier. Plug it into the USB port, it's a bit bigger than a memory stick at the moment, and off you go. Hopefully as with WiFi cards, these will become standard laptop equipment soon. Hardware is already for free, as long as you agree to chain yourself to a two year operator contract as is the case these days.

What makes it all very interesting though, phones going mobile radically changed how we used telephones in terms of frequency of communication and availability. As the UMTS network gains coverage (took what, less than 10 years to go from NMT to GMS?) the wireless broadband will always be with you. How will that change the way we use the Internet? One can imagine some pretty cool stuff emerging.