Portable Broadband: The world as your hotspot

If smart phones like Palm’s Treo have arrived, could broadband wireless be far behind? Smart phones can support data-intensive applications such as Voice-over-IP, video gaming, video conferences and movies, all of which need much bigger pipes to transport data than cellular phone networks can provide. Consumers and businesses want to have the same experience with the broadband Internet on their mobile phones as they have at home or in the office.

People on the move are still tethered to hotspots when it comes to gaining access to the Internet; their-WiFi enabled connections do not reach beyond 100-300 feet. On their cellular phones, interrupted service is sometimes a problem with voice calls, and Internet capabilities are mostly out of the question.

Telecommunications companies such as Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) and AT&T Inc.’s (NYSE: T) Cingular revived their mobile Internet data services by investing in broadband wireless networks, which commonly go by the moniker 3G. These third-generation networks are capable of transporting more data, equivalent to broadband connections available in homes and offices, but are concentrated in densely populated metropolitan centers. Their signals cannot reach the entire area of a city, let alone rural regions. 

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