The internet is mobile, i belive we all agree on that, other than in the office i can’t remember a time i plugged anything into an Ethernet connection and most of the ultra thin laptops and all of the tablets are forgoing them…
So why is it, in this modern global economy i’m faced when leaving the country to either sell a kidney to raise enough cash for roaming 3G OR use the ropey Wifi connection in a hotel..?
The experience starts when you hit the airport. of ALL the places which could benefit from free Wifi its an Airport, a few choice adverts for companies in Duty free, offering groupon style discounts over the next n minutes. This could if done right fund the whole Wifi in the airport. Provide deals people want and tax the shops not the customers. Instead we have Boingo a company a bit like the sheriff of nottingham. Robbing the passengers to feed its shareholders..
Very few people are going to be streaming videos they want to check email, the hotel or weather for their destination, check trains etc..
However experience shows me that while the outlandish costs for Wifi in the UK are there, in europe i don’t think the idea of mobile internet has even perculated into thier thought process. Munich, Zurich, Rome and Venice airports plenty of “hotspot” signs no actual hotspots. Maybe the cleaner unplugged them?
Outside of the airport, if you have a 3G tariff in the UK, when you get to your destination turn on your phone and get ready to be charged just for turning you phone on. I got an SMS from orange informing me i woud be charged £3+ a MB of data and £1.50 for sending OR RECEIVING an SMS..
I would’t feel so bad, other than the days when each country has their own Mobile phone providers are long gone, the big companies like Vodafone, 02 and Orange all pretty much have networks setup globally and its not costing them any more to put the data through a cell tower in Italy than in North London as the data is still routed and redirected.
There is the option of Hotel Wifi, however i put all my traffic through a VPN because powering up my Macbook Pro i was able to see 15 other Macbook devices on the network and get data off of 5 of them, no firewall setup straight access for everyone direct to the users hard disk. and i don’t want to think about who is sniffing packets on the hotel wifi…
So come on Mobile data providers of the world, its time to kick it up a gear, we are all going mobile, we are all paying you for the privilege to eat at the buffet which is 3G technology, you remember the one which you bought at a high rate because of the dubious auction system it was sold under.. Well now we are ready to start using it it ernest and you need to start plying us with the same deals which you’ve been doing on your voice networks for years. We want the all you can eat buffet all over the world, not the picky bits someone else has prodded at the end of the party.. We will pay for entrance, but really a surcharge on top of every service?
TeliaSonera subsidiary Ncell has just completed installation of a 3G base station at 5,200 meters (17,000 feet) that will reach the 8,848-meter peak of Mount Everest. Mind you, we’ve already seen 