Completely untrue. internet through cellphone service is crap. it is slow, expensive and has very low bandwidth caps, often 5GB or less and if you go over, you get a huge overage charge

wifi does not have this problem and in most big cities, it is hard to find a place with out a open access point.

umm.. why does this sound more like a sales pitch than honest to goodness journalism?… cause it's not.

I just don't see the major carriers continuing to fund a wireless system [WiFi] when the advancement of the data traffic to phones and Netbooks is growing [3g-4g-5g]. The ability to connect to AT&T and Verizon from a Netbook is already been established.

If WiFi was so easy to deploy in wide areas, it would've already been done.
WiFi may live on in small concentrated areas, but the cell phone data plans are going to be their successor; it has more coverage, it's more manageable and controllable for the carriers.

Obviously data plans [pricing] are going to change and adapt or the next few years, but Netbooks and cell phones are not going to be the end of this parade of internet devices.

While my comments are speculative, the future can change and I love a good discussion.

Thanks for your comments.

I just don't see the major carriers continuing to fund a wireless system [WiFi] when the advancement of the data traffic to phones and Netbooks is growing [3g-4g-5g]. The ability to connect to AT&T and Verizon from a Netbook is already been established.

If WiFi was so easy to deploy in wide areas, it would've already been done.
WiFi may live on in small concentrated areas, but the cell phone data plans are going to be their successor; it has more coverage, it's more manageable and controllable for the carriers.

Obviously data plans [pricing] are going to change and adapt or the next few years, but Netbooks and cell phones are not going to be the end of this parade of internet devices.

While my comments are speculative, the future can change and I love a good discussion.

Thanks for your comments.

The story is based off of current trends and information. The links to resources are for substantiation.

Thanks for your comments.

Well while I see your point in sales trends and etc. The main thing *which I should have added in the previous post* is you also make the statement that there will be no more need for IT personell. I do not understand how that would be. Major corporations cannot afford this type of connectivity, or unless it gets to really dirt cheap prices. SOHOs and things of that nature would surely benefit, but that market is already saturated by these things. Also no matter what you do, unless you have an embedded operating system with at least 4 years of r&d, your not going to make people smarter, which alot of us know is 3/4 of IT in any industry. The cloud would help move this way beyond your expectations as given, and to top it off would make a near flawless system in terms of stability, but at the same time, anywhere you have an electronic device, there has to be people to show others how to use it and what to do with the devices when the end user dupes it up.

The other argument that I would like to throw out there is the idea of a price change. I will have to admit, that wireless data connectivity is 20 fold cheaper now on a cell phone than it was in 2000, and that trend may still keep going, but there is also the point of the major telcos implementing this massive wireless internet structure. I have heard many accounts of people in big cities having horrible 3g service with I-phones because of their saturation with the limited amount of wireless bandwidth spectrum that they currently use. Billions would have to be spent to get the towers pumping the information fast enough for everyone to use without having major hickups and I cannot see where the cost would come down for consumer for a very long time, if not make it more expensive if there was a massive movement on this front. To top it all off, these are telcos, plain and simple. They love to nickle and dime you. I will promise you that you will be limited to one connection per device per plan, and it would generally start in the price range of $70 for a 3mbps down connection with at least a $30 surcharge for each consecutively interconnected device per month with at least a two year contract.

Bottom line is that even though it's no secret that the telcos do run the internet, they do handle cell phone service and cell phone based internet services in a totally different manner than land based internet services.

Heck to me it actually seems to be taking a step backwards if this happened instead of forewards, because if you look at places like certain parts of china *and yes… unfortunately I am talking about the place where you get stupid sensorship for very unappropriate reasons* but there, you can have a cell phone, pay one low rate, and get unlimited calling unless you step out of the wifi framework because their cell phones actually just run primarily off of wifi, and they have complete city infrastructures for it, and to top it off they do pretty well in that infrastructure.

Now if WiMax would finally get out of the gutter and start showing some real progress, I could see this eradicating all of it, and basically doing the same thing that you are talking about in your article, but in the long run would end up being much cheaper to have.

Don't get me wrong it was a good article but I just do not see it happening within the next 10 years unless someone makes some major breakthroughs with the cell spectrum which could happen, but then it may not. I dunno, guess we will see.

HexScrew,
Your response is fabulously stated and argued well.
My perspective is that money rules and if it can be done simpler at a higher price people will do it just to cut the crap.

The elimination of IT persons would be those at the small mom and pop shops and fast food joints. If the newer devices don't need WiFi and every thing is coming from 3g or 4g service these locales will remove those services and discontinue their IT services. Why pay for a service if not enough people are using it; it's a level of saturation we're talking about.

I absolutely agree with you on the nickel and dime stuff in regards to the data plans, but as you seem to well know, technology is a leap every 6 months or so. Whether it be AT&T, Sprint or Verizon, these giants are really pushing the limits on their Internet Service Provider services. The Internet Service Provider's know they are losing money on the WiFi routers and they surely want to end those; just as they have realized that unlimited Internet service is not in their best interest.

There's such a push to get everyone on to a portable Internet device and for those customers to type with their thumbs- it's unreal the number of commercials you see on this; new phones, new features, new data plans and better coverage… it goes on and on.

And while there was some discussion about free WiFi coming to America, that's never going to happen. Why? The lobbyists control these things. And there's too much money here to be lost, just to be giving away Internet service; which Obama calls a 'fundamental right'. While I agree with him on that, it's not going to happen any time soon.

Thanks so much for offering your views. It's rare that I get such a well thought out response on such a coherent level; it's very refreshing.

I truly appreciate your responses and I completely understand your perspective; we will have to wait and see.

Thanks,
L. Henry Jr.
http://www.lehsys.com

Thank you for your response! Actually it is nice to see that someone who is writing about these things actually do read the comments, which is something I have never seen before.

Also I will have to add I was drinking while typing that last post, so it was a pleasant surprise that not only did I find it mostly proper, you found it enjoyable

I fully agree with you on the free wifi thing. I saw that being dumped before whichever private company it was to even bid on the wireless spectrum. Money turns the internet, and has been turning it since the first dialup service was created if not spawned in the early bbs days.

Also I just had a similar debate about why people pay outrageous prices for in house setup of things such as wifi routers, and the main reason why people pay that price is because basically they were told in the last generation and/or the generation before in the wireless shuffle that it was completely fool proof easy, but at the same time the install cds were horribly programed and in most cases people had a nightmare trying to get it setup and ended up paying an even bigger price for on site service in the long run, so I definitely see your point on people paying for simplicity.

Also I misread your point in the original article about I.T. Where you were stating that you will not need the mom and pop fixers and etc. for the services, I thought you were talking about real network administrators, and enterprise class I.T. Which of course will always be around because the nature of business activities.

I actually just saw yet another commercial for the Dell mini + built in 4g support. This really got me thinking about the push they are putting on this. I think the reason why I was belting out before hand was because the reason why they want to get people on this band wagon, and that is to make more money. I think the reason for this is because I am yet another American who is tired of seeing what I call multi-monopoley corporations (i.e. large corporations that get together with schemes to keep just them in the game and thus working as a group to drive everyone else away so they cant be held as a monopoly since they do compete, but they do it in co-operation with each other so they each come out on top in one way or another) with everyone else just being consumers, or sort of the 'rich keep getting richer, and poor keep getting poorer' type of deal…

Well I will also have to say this. I actually just found this site from a post on a forum, and I will just have to tell you that after reading your thoughts on my posts, your website is now in my bookmarks (although I will have to admit I am not always this outspoken on things)

Thank you for your time.

Thanks, just what I was looking for. Thanks so much…