Mobile Data

When will prepaid carriers offer tablets?

At this point it’s only a matter of time before prepaid carriers start to offer their customers tablet computers. Many, if not most, prepaid carriers already offer smartphones, and tablets are the next logical progression from that. It could be coming sooner than you think, too. Cricket actually planned to offer its customers a tablet this year, but recently backed off the idea. That might not be a sign that it won’t work in general, but rather that the timing isn’t right. But that will change soon enough.

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Ready Wireless now available at Airport Wireless stores

Prepaid wireless broadband is expensive. It carries the convenience of access without a contract, but what you lack in commitment you make up for in price. We’ve seen a few competitive pricing plans, especially from Virgin Mobile, but for the most part the service comes at a high cost. Ready Mobile is no exception. As you can see on their review page, they charge $25 for 250MB, $45 for 600MB, and $75 for 1GB. Convenience, though, is the angle they’re taking. They recently announced distribution through Airport Wireless and Techshowcase, which will place them in 18 airports across the U.S. If there was ever a time I would break down and buy a USB modem and prepaid data plan, it’s while waiting in an airport for a delayed flight. Sounds like a good deal for them.

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Forecast: Mobile phone transactions to hit $300 billion in 5 years

For those who are sick of hearing about the Virgin Mobile/Helio merger, we’ll start off the day with something else. For those who want more on the deal, it’ll come in a couple of hours. For now, we turn our attention to the mobile transaction market, which is rather slow in the U.S. now. Everyone I’ve talked to blames security concerns for the lack of mobile transaction growth. That should eventually be resolved, though, and analysts have put a number to the level it should hit by 2013: $300 billion.

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Anyone for prepaid wireless broadband?

One thing I’ve noticed lacking in prepaid is mobile data. A few carriers offer it — most notably Cricket. But for the most part, mobile data isn’t readily available on a prepaid basis. And forget mobile broadband cards for your laptop. Once again, we have Cricket here and few others. Thankfully, another player is entering the game. No, it’s not a prepaid carrier. Rather, it’s Slingshot Communications, and they’re planning a prepaid mobile broadband rollout in June.

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100 Mbps wireless Internet on the way?

Well, if you consider three years “on the way.” Nokia is working on the technology, which will eventually be adopted as the 4G standard in the U.S. Presumably, at least, since AT&T and Verizon seem to be going in that direction. However, Nokia isn’t standing firm on 2010; they’re saying the “2010 timeframe.” To disambiguate, that means anywhere from 2010 to 2015. We expect it to be closer to 2010, though. The faster the mobile Internet, the better the opportunities to monetize it.

[Broadband Reports]

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Qualcomm releases dual-mode laptop broadband card

Remember the days when you had to buy a USB WiFi card for your laptop? Clearly, those days are far behind us. The newest trend in external modems is broadband cellular cards, and even they are starting to move into the laptop’s shell. The problem is, though, that one card won’t power EV-DO technology — as used by Verizon and Sprint among others — and HSPA — as used by AT&T and T-Mobile. That makes laptop purchases that much more difficult. Qualcomm has a better idea. They’ve developed a card that uses both HSPA and EV-Do technology. So now laptop manufacturers can insert one card and not worry about alienating any potential customers.

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The cell phone home security system

Among the things we love about cell phones are the ways they’re used outside of their intended functions. Remember the cell phone motion detector? Or how about the cell laser? We applaud the people who engineer these devices. And so today we salute the man who turned a cell phone into a home surveillance camera.

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As expected, mobile data usage grows in U.S.

We live in an increasingly mobile world, baby, so it comes as no surprise that mobile data usage in the U.S. has grown significantly so far this year. The second quarter number — $5.85 billion — represents a seven percent increase over the first quarter of this year. For the year-to-date we’re at $11.35 billion, which is an 81 percent — yes, 81 percent — increase over the first half of 2006. Verizon is the leader in data, accounting for 31 percent of the industry’s data revenue in the second quarter. Undoubtedly, we’ll see further increase in the next quarter.

[Information Week]

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