Yesterday Martin O’Donnell sent me an article that reported wireless broadband services offered by Verizon, Cingular, and Sprint Nextel are being adopted by some road warriors, but that adoption has been mainly limited to outside sales people, building contractors, insurance claims adjustors, and first responders.
There are a lot of other businesses where 3G data services for laptop users ought to be taking off but currently aren’t. For instance, wireless broadband would be a great solution for journalists covering sports events like pro cycling. Cingular HSDPA wasn’t deployed during the 2005 Tour de Georgia which I covered in person, but a service like that would have been really useful because I could have easily worked from my hotel room and restaurants when I was not in the media center. I would say that if I were to attend the race next year, a broadband wireless card would be a must.
If I had a job with a long mass transit commute, as I did prior to 9/11, I think high speed mobile data would be worth the estimated $60 per month expense. If I worked in Manhattan and had to commute via New Jersey Transit’s Northeast Corridor Service, think of how much work I could do on Operation Gadget while sitting on the train?
I’d also be interested in broadband wireless service if I were a field engineer for a software or networking company. Why waste time at the beginning of a client visit acquiring WiFi or a hard Ethernet connection when you can just open up your notebook and be on-line. (Maybe you need corporate Intranet access, so that might be a reason.)
Beyond the estimated $60 per month cost, there are some surprising issues with buying wireless broadband service. It’s really hard to find wireless broadband network cards on Amazon.com. These are still niche products, so maybe this is to be expected. However, it’s even difficult to determine which notebook computers in Amazon.com’s store have mobile broadband capabilities built-in.
For all the talk of Dell’s commitment to wireless broadband, there still isn’t a lot of clear information on the subject on their website. I had to delve deep into the options when specing out a notebook for purchase before I saw the words HSDPA and EV-DO for the first time.
Cingular, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint Nextel each have mobile broadband cards available on their websites, but again, they aren’t very prominently featured.
So I guess my question is, how committed are the carriers to pushing this technology to the masses if they don’t make a large marketing commitment to it?
Technorati Tags: mobile broadband, Cingular, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, HSDPA, EV-DO.