Now Sprint (NYSE:FON), coming on the heels of a similar service from Verizon (NYSE:VZ), is to offer an unlimited wireless internet service which has you covered anywhere on their mobile phone network- at speeds "comparable to wired DSL". Pretty cool, but as a bit of anecdotal evidence, a few months back I met a guy on the bus with Verizon's similar service and he said it was still a bit slow. It is perhaps similar to 56k on a good day. This WSJ article says that Sprint's service will be from $40-90, I believe the Verizon service had been around $30, but perhaps that was a promotion.
What makes this markedly different from our previous mobile internet services, is that it is an unlimited service, and doesn't charge you exorbitant per minute rates. Thus it can be used more as an everyday, full-time service, both at home and outside- rather than just an emergency on-the-go convenience. Kind of like how at some point mobile phone services became cheap enough to make it economically feasible to go without fixed line phone service.
Nevertheless we're not quite there yet I think in terms of wireless internet, since while definitely interesting, the service still seems a little expensive if indeed it is a bit slow. But in a year or so wireless service could begin to compete with fixed line home broadband.
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