Comments on: Rubber Meets the Road

By: Katherine W. Prawl

Katherine W. Prawl — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 19:29:47 +0000

Captive in one sense, locked in by their 2-year contract, but there IS competition. One can choose between at least two viable systems now, Sprint or Verizon, and depending on location, AT&T might be a contender. I think it’s just lack of imagination on the part of the cellular providers, who apparently don’t realize what a tiger they have by the tail. They could be making lots more money if they offered extended accounts for those willing to pay for them. I think the demand just surprised them, and they weren’t prepared for it. Look at AT&T after the introduction of the iPhone. We bought two of them on day-one, so we’ve been witness to the shortfalls and growth they’ve experienced as they have had to expand their network to accommodate all the data users they acquired because of Apple. The difference is that they’ve done it. Sprint and Verizon may need to accelerate their network build-out since they’re offering data-capable devices like these wireless modems and the Google smart phone, etc., but they also need to rethink their data customer offerings, since the demand exists and will be growing as more people get used to the notion of using wireless as their ISPs.

By: Tony Cornett

Tony Cornett — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:35:55 +0000

Kat, it’s called the almighty $$$$$ We mobile people are a captive audience.;-)

By: Katherine W. Prawl

Katherine W. Prawl — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 08:39:01 +0000

Thanks for the applause, Tony, but it’s not really deserved. I *am* a bandwidth hog — I use the ‘net intensively for work and play. Any extra bandwidth you don’t want, I’d be happy to take off your hands, any time! As of yesterday, in one week we’d used nearly half our monthly allowance (2183 MB), even when trying to take it easy and using available free hotspots. I don’t know how this is going to work out — we might have to buy a 2nd account/modem and switch them out when one gets used up. Either that, or I’m going to swipe my husband’s laptop and hang out at coffeeshops or someplace. There ought to be a better way, but I don’t think the cellular companies are trying too hard. They could make more money from geeks like me who would be willing to pay extra for more bandwidth, just not at the ridiculous $0.25/MB they charge for running over. I have a business grade account on my cable line back in Missouri, for about $20 more per month than a “normal” account, and everybody’s happy. Why can’t the cellphone people offer the same kind of deal, instead of calling people names just because their usage doesn’t fit their arbitrary limits?

By: Tony Cornett

Tony Cornett — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:06:01 +0000

Atta girl! Every bit helps and save those updates and such for places like that. while in places like that and I’m sure you know also take advantage of any bandwidth hog work you might need to get done. I got so good at doing that sort of stuff I wound up being way below my 5GB many times. So much I felt guilty not using it lol! just saving all the updates for times like this will save you a ton of bandwidth. I have all my updates set to manual for cases like this. See if you would have waited just a couple days you could have done all that there. i fnally realized that the updates could wait.

By: Katherine W. Prawl

Katherine W. Prawl — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:56:26 +0000

Yep, doing that now. We got into Tucson this evening and found a park with an available site and free WiFi. Saved!

By: Tony Cornett

Tony Cornett — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 00:12:21 +0000

I went through the same thing. Take advantage of any free Wi-FI’s you find on occasion too. I used to do that for all my updates. Worked well and sure cut back on the bandwidth!

By: Katherine W. Prawl

Katherine W. Prawl — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:24:05 +0000

Yes, but that was before they counted all the MBs I spent downloading WinXP SP2 and security updates…. In 3 days we chewed through 1.5 GB Yikes!! Guess we’ll have to be watchful the rest of this billing period, for sure.

By: Tony Cornett

Tony Cornett — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:37:45 +0000

Kat,
218 MB? Shoot you only have 4,782 left! Just keep an eye on it, you should be fine.