leyton.org

An interesting idea, Vodafone are launching a laptop oriented 3G Service. Essentially, using 3G to provide data access via a card for your laptop, rather than a mobile phone (as with 3 here in the UK). It’s launching in Germany and Italy first as a means of testing 3G, but could - as the BBC article points out - threaten WiFi.

The idea is appealing on many levels, and could even tempt me over to 3G (I’m not won over by being able to video conference on my phone). Right now, if I want wireless outside of the office, I either have to fork out a silly amount of money with one of the many providers: The tariffs they offer are, to me, inflexible. There’s few “get 3 hours over 3 months” (ideal for the occasional use I’d like), they’re “£lots for 1 hour over a month” type setups, ie. expensive for occasional use.

If, like WAP, I can pay for an amount of bandwidth, I’m won, and with 3G offering usable bandwidth for decent browsing, it’s got to be a winner. On my mobile phone tariff too (unified billing is tempting, but where’s mpay got to?)

Oh, and that I can do this on the train, at a clients office (where many seem to ban WiFi due to the security risks) rather than stuck in a coffee shop paying for expensive coffee in addition to service, it rapidly gets silly.

Hopefully, Vodafone’s strategy on moving into 3G will open up a new approach that others will soon adopt.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2003 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.