Is your cellphone your only connection to the Internet?

It's funny, what you notice when you're far from home.

At least in North Carolina, it seemed to me that there were a lot of people using cellphones as their only means of Internet access. This makes sense because DSL and Cable connections are more expensive there, but I'm curious if there's a widespread change going on.

Please tell me if you are using your cellphone as your only means of connecting to the Internet. I'll include "tethered" connections for this question. TIA.

Bill

********** Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Reply to
Bill Horne
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Certainly while traveling, especially into Poland and into France, I've relied entirely on tethered connections, using a local prepaid data SIM, and an unlocked (but Cingular-labeled) Motorola SLVR handset (dating from the old RAZR era), as wi-fi was simply unavailable to me there.

'Zat the sort of data-point you were looking for? Need more details?

Cheers, -- tlvp

Reply to
tlvp

Well, yes and no.

Yes, because it illustrates the fact that Internet access is now both ubiquitous and mobile.

No, since I'm wondering if there is a more widespread change in progress: if we (the Netizons whose children grew up with "always on" connectivity and whom can remember a world where long-distance phone calls were a rarity) are completing a circle, and going back to the pointed, no-nonense world of telegraph messages where every word was supposed to count.

I wonder, in other words, if the tawdry carnival atmosphere of the "World Wide Wait" has (finally) started to give way to a new appreciation for content over climate; for well-chosen words over distracting images.

If only it is so!

Bill

Reply to
Bill Horne

Anecdotally - one of my co-workers is originally from France, and goes back there to visit every year or so. He's told me that in much of France, cellphone access to the Internet (direct or tethered) is pretty much "it" for most people. There is, apparently, no viable alternative in many areas... the telecom providers there haven't done well at provisioning wired internet access in areas outside the major cities.

Reply to
Dave Platt

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