Mobile Tech Minutes: 3G observations from Vegas
My trip to Vegas was all too short but I observed some interesting things about the mobile technology I saw in use. This Mobile Tech Minutes episode contains my brief thoughts about that technology in action.
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Are you sure their using integrated 3G? What about connecting to the net via bluetooth to a tethered smart phone with a data plan?
With Verizon, the $60 data plan is much cheaper when combined with a smart phone data plan. Of course you can’t talk and surf at the same time, but for many that won’t be an issue.
Dan, tethering would be an external solution.
Agreed, but if you tether via bluetooth the casual observer, you in this case, wouldn’t know if the internet connection was via an internal modem in the notebook or a phone in their pocket, belt or laptop bag.
All I’m saying is that just because you didn’t see an external modem doesn’t mean they couldn’t be connected to one (i.e. their phone) without wires.
Dan, I hear you but usually you can tell if someone is tethered. Maybe some of them were tethered but I didn’t feel that to be the case.
You HAVE to share that trick. All these years of mobile tech and I still can’t see wireless connections. Maybe I need new glasses? :)
I carry wireless spray in my gear bag. Two spritzes and wireless streams appear clearly.
Pointless here in Canada unless one has a particularly sympathetic employer willing on picking up the tab (and in these days, who would that be) for such connectivity, as the data rates are prohibitively expensive with any carrier.
All very well to only spend $400 on a 3G netbook, but if a 2GB / month data plan is going to cost you $2700 over a 3 year contract, who is going to go for that? Better far to stick to free internal or public wi-fi hotspots.
Incidentally, the cost of data here with Rogers (and Fido, a subsidiary) – the only GSM providers in Canada – has also meant iPhone sales have ‘not met expectations’ (to say the very least)
Dan, just to clarify, you are correct that I can’t be 100% sure that everyone I saw using 3G wasn’t tethered to a phone in their bag or pocket. In my experience though usually such a person has the phone out where they can keep an eye on it and that wasn’t the case for most of these people. Either their phone wasn’t out or they were talking on their phone while working on the laptop so I’m betting they had integrated 3G. Your point is well taken however.