The Introduction of Mobile Broadband

I can remember around 10 Years ago, I was browsing the Internet using a 56K dial up modem, dreaming of a 512K Broadband / ADSL connection or even a 128K ISDN line. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that in as little as 10 Years I would be enjoying 4MB broadband on my laptop using a mobile broadband connection. Maybe I could imagine fixed line speeds getting that fast, but never via mobile via wireless networks. It seemed impossible, but it’s obviously not.

Mobile Broadband, particular in Europe is taking off and at a rapid rate. Almost all of the major phone networks around Europe such as Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile are now offering mobile broadband packages. Some even combined mobile broadband packages as part of their existing mobile phone tariff packages and options.

There are numerous advantages of using mobile broadband, the big draw being that you can be connected anywhere and at any time. The costs involved are also what is making mobile broadband so popular. You can pickup a reasonable package or plan for a similar cost to a mobile phone contract tariff, some even cheaper. In most cases, you also get the hardware for free also. This is pretty much always in the form of a USB dongle that you can plug into your notebook or with some providers such as T-Mobile, you may also be offered an express card (or PCMCIA for older notebooks).

If broadband in general has come this far in just 10 years, it’s scary to think what sort of connection speeds we can be enjoying over the next 10 years. If it continues at the same trend, our mobile broadband capacity could be up to 20MB within the next 2 years alone. I am not sure what I could possibly do with that sort of speed connection. Hopefully web based software will evolve at the same rate.