Technology Futures

AT&T is going to in its phone stores. The mini laptops will be sharply discounted if you also buy a phone or data plan from the company. Rumors have been swirling for months of netbooks with 3G cellular modems built in, and for a lot of people, esepcially frequent travelers, the small light devices are just right.

Connectivity via the cellular network is also appealing, as the long hyped vision of massive WiFi clouds everywhere and universal net access via WiFi has never materialized. Airports are particularly aggravating, with a range of options--at one end, you have the excellent free WiFi in the Roanoke airport to places like Atlanta where you have a choice of several overpriced commercial WiFi services that offer poor service. And hotels are another trouble spot for travelers, with budget hotels offering free but often slow service and high-priced hotels charging extra for service that is often worse than the their competitor's free service. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

But it all adds up to using the cellular phone network for Internet access. The iPhone has spiked a huge increase in mobile access because of the excellent design and great software, and one of the nicest things about the iPhone, compared to a laptop, is that it works almost everywhere because of the cellular data connection.

But as more and more users migrate to the cellular data services, the cellular networks will overload quickly. AT&T's heavily advertised 3G network is nearly useless, and I don't even bother to turn it on, because I usually get dropped calls and slower data speeds than the slower but more reliable Edge service. Wireless remains an expensive business, with steep operating costs. But we all want mobility access to the network. Communities planning broadband infrastructure have to be thoughtful about wireless investments, because it's possible to spend a lot of money on wireless broadband and not have very much when you are finished.

A grass roots effort in North Carolina to beat back an anti-broadband bill in the legislature has apparently had some effect, as the bill was sent back to a committee for more study. Opponents of the bill think that's good enough for now, although most of these bills continue to re-surface year after year.

The new Kindle DX by Amazon is out. It's a bigger version the older Kindles, and the main feature is a much bigger screen. The gadget cost $489, but some of that goes toward the free connectivity on the Sprint cellular network. You can download books and news via the wireless link, and recent novels start at $10.

While leveraging almost everywhere cellular connectivity is clever, it limits the device's usefulness as a substitute for a full-fledged computer for Web access. The slower cellular data speeds are fine for downloading a book and then reading it offline, but trying to read the New York Times in the morning over a cellular data link is likely to be pokey, and the whole connectivity model does not scale up well once lots of people have the device. AT&T's 3G network can barely handle the still small number of iPhones.

Kindle will pave the way for better devices with color screens and WiFi connectivity to news and books. Kindle may also help publishers finally make the pricing and business model shift to better accommodate selling books in electronic format.

But there is still another shoe to drop: Apple has been making veiled hints about "new and interesting" devices, that many think could be a tablet iPhone. It would not take much to do that, as the iPhone is already a full-fledged computer running a modern, open source version of Unix. If Apple releases a tablet version of the iPod Touch this summer (an iPhone without the cellular phone but everything else), Kindle will fade quickly into obscurity.

I am back from three days at the Broadband Properties annual conference. As more communities make investments in broadband infrastructure, we are beginning to get some interesting data back on the economic impact.

In Anson, Indiana, a developer is putting duct and fiber to 1790 homes and 9 million square feet of commercial and retail space--all part of a master planned community. The investment has brought an Amazon distribution center and 1200 jobs to the community.

In Orlando, Florida, the Lake Nona planned community is building one of the nation's largest set of medical facilities, with more than 5 million square feet of specialty clinics, hospitals, and medical facilities. One million square feet of retail is planned, and 5400 housing units are being built. There will be fiber to every single premise.

In the rural Hill Country near Austin, Texas, the local telephone coop is building fiber to the home, and says that the initiative has retained 150 jobs and added 200 new jobs. The coop works closely with local economic developers, who are pushing hard to get the right telecom infrastructure to be able to meet any business need.

Economic developers in other parts of the country need to be asking: "How do our regions compare with these kinds of projects? How will we convince companies to come to our region when these other communities have world class telecom infrastructure?"