The Need for Mobile Broadband

I am often asked why I pay extra for mobile broadband for my N800 and TabletKiosk eo v7110. I decided to organize ten good reasons:

1. Never Disconnected - There are occasions when Email, messages, news posts, and the like are just plain urgent, but I don't want to be tethered to my computer at home. If I have to take a note, send a picture, or pass along as it happens, I am always free to do so.
   
2. Never Unproductive - When I need to go out for things that take time or require waiting (car maintenance, haircuts, doctor's office) I can take all my research materials with me everywhere. I may not be able to compose a full blog post with pictures quickly on a mobile device, but I can certainly have all my notes in order to hammer it out when I get back.
   
3. Save Money - This is a big one for me. As a consumer electronics nut, I spend a good deal of time in electronics stores. I hate ordering online because the look, feel, and experience of devices are very important to me and that can't be felt from a web page. Local retailers are faster in handling returns and extended warranty coverage. If I am at a store and see a new device, I can use my mobile broadband to hop online, read a review, compare it to other products, and see if the store up the street has it any cheaper. If I had a dislike CompUSA but they'll save me $40 on something over Circuit City, I can ask Circuit City if they'll price-match CompUSA and show them the price.
4. Abandon Local Storage - To be honest, I'm tired of hard drives. I would rather have a pocketable device with 8GB or a UMPC with 32GB as a solid state device than have a 100G hard drive with me everywhere. These little things can get lost, stolen, dropped, overheated, or otherwise mangled. I would rather not have a huge data loss on a system that is designed to go to more risky places where a desktop or even laptop cannot. This encourages me to use remote storage like Gmail, Google Documents, and other server-side applications.
5. All Media, Everywhere - While we're talking about remote storage, let's talk about mobile media. With Orb, SlingBox, and related products, it is possible to have your music, movies, recorded TV, video clips, and more at your fingertips. I have 400 gigs of total media with me everywhere, thanks to Orb.
   
6. Fight Boredom - Come on - everyone likes the occasional game or two.
7. Never Get Lost - If you know in general where you are, you can quickly find out where to go. Google Maps, Windows Live Search, Mapquest, and the like often tell you where you can go based on where you are. Couple that with a Bluetooth GPS receiver and you don't even have to know where you are.
8. Flexible Communication - With a phone, you're limited to voice and the "mobile" internet. With a mobile broadband device, you can use voice, instant messaging, text, VOIP, video conferencing, shared whiteboards, shared documents, etc. I'd rather leave an Email than a voicemail any day.
   
9. Adaptable Lifestyle - All of the above points are slight changes to the way I live my life and keep and organize my information to be more efficient. This heightened awareness of my work flow, my knowledge base, and my priorities help in ANY situation - even situations in which I do not have my technological tools handy. If I must adapt to learn a new method of life management, I am already aware of the key ways I live and can organize accordingly.
   
10. Geek > Fool - It's better to be a Geek than a Fool. Really. Say you're on your way to a party but left the Emailed invitation at home: Look it up instead of calling for directions. Say you're at a car dealership and the dealer is trying to wiggle extra money out of you for "required fees." Pull up evidence to the contrary. Say you're arguing with a retailer over the advertised price of merchandise. Find the ad. With hard evidence, you win. It may be a bit geeky to carry around a tiny tablet everywhere, but it doesn't take long for the awkwardness to wear off.

I attempted to contact major US carriers including Sprint, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, Alltel, and Helio for their input on mobile offerings. My representative at Sprint is wonderful and T-Mobile also replied saying that they got the information and will pass along replies shortly. I will give the other carriers a bit more time (though it's been two weeks already) to allow their marketing teams to respond before I make the chart of "providers" and "offerings" that was going to accompany the above article. Look for that in the near future.