How far away is mobile internet?

Internet connection, especially broadband connection, is a pretty fragmented experience in India. Every month, for a couple of days, for some inexplicable reason, my broadband connection goes down. I use the word inexplicable because I have a running list of what might have brought the broadband down. This list ranges from late bill payment to power surges that screw up the ADSL router to other issues that we discover once we start to troubleshoot. When my broadband is on the blink I often yearn for an alternate mode of connecting to the net since the pace of my work slows down.
Yes, there is the latest HTC smartphone of my husband’s that I borrow to check my emails, and yes, there is my CDMA phone that I do connect at times and yes, there are the cyber cafes that I can pop into to do my work. These are workarounds and at times not available. For instance, my CDMA software at times does not work and that means no Internet connection. Apparently, while I and others in India have been struggling to get a reliable broadband connection, there have been a bunch of people working on harnessing the mobile network infrastructure to provide Internet connection. I discovered this initiative while on a recent visit to Macau to attend the GSMA Asia Mobile Congress.
Is there a way to combine the existing Global System of Mobile Communication (GSM) plus the notebook and laptop to provide an instant connected experience? That is precisely what GSMA, a global trade association representing over 700 GSM mobile operators around the world, and Microsoft have been working on for a while now. I saw a demo of the mobile broadband PC and was quite intrigued by the potential of this device and could picture myself using it if this became available in India. The way it works is you pop in your GSM sim card from your mobile operator on the back of the notebook and viola! you can surf the Internet. While I make it sound easy, it requires a lot of work to put together such a device.
GSM and Microsoft Corp commissioned an extensive research to discover the market potential for mobile broadband PCs and laptops. Their findings revealed that there is a mass market for mobile broadband PC/laptop in the $500-$1200 range of notebooks and laptops, which customers can use in multiple locations. It is probably not surprising that their research findings also revealed that users in the middle and lower strata of the socio-economic structure were more likely to buy a PC rather than a PDA or a smartphone for Internet access.
The researchers had people use a prototype of the mobile broadband PC and discovered that users actually liked the ability to connect to the Internet once their laptops or PCs were turned on. So there is no more futzing around with a datacard or the USB cable or a wireless router to connect to the Internet. Instead, you power on your mobile broadband laptop or PCs and you are ready to go.
Another research finding that they unearthed during the trial of the mobile broadband PC was that users used it for two primary reasons: communication and entertainment. Now, what is interesting is that these users were located in diverse places like Ireland, Turkey, and Thailand among others and yet, these users exhibited similar traits on how they used the device. I wonder how these findings will shape the offerings from various telco operators, especially when it comes to price point for data.
Can you go out and buy such a PC right now? Not yet. The mobile broadband PC will be out early next year. Will it be available in India? We will have to wait and find out. Will it work in India even though we don’t have 3GSM network? I understand that it can work with the existing 2G network in India using their EDGE service.
So, it seems like in a few months time I might have access to an alternate and reliable way of accessing the Internet in India, but I have a lot of unanswered questions. What will be the speed of my Internet connection? How much will I have to fork out to my mobile operators to use their network to surf the Internet? Since there is no 3G network in India, can I use my data and voice at the same time? I don’t have answers but hope to get them in the next few months. So, stay tuned.
Source: financialexpress.com