Rick Blaine <dont@bother.com> wrote:

> Cellphone data service is barely better than dialup at its best with
> respect to speed, is expensive and is limited in allowed transfer
> amounts.

I suggest that your comments are out of date.

Cingular:
"Theoretical peak downlink speed of 3.6Mbps and uplink speed of 384Kbps
Avg Download speed of 400 - 700 Kbps on BroadbandConnect Network
Avg Upload speed of 100 - 120 Kbps on BroadbandConnect Network "

Unlimited data plans would be $60 per month, maybe cheaper.
A 20MB per month plan is $39.99.

> Cell data has its place, but substituting for fixed location service is
> not one of them.

In urban areas, the newer cellular services can exceed some DSL.
In rural areas, the dialup is not always good. At home, I have a 21600
dialup, 30-40K cellular, and 6M cable.

At my previous location, there was no DSL, no cable, dialup was 24000 on a
good day, but EDGE is deployed on Cingular, at about 100k.

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Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley Lake, CA, USA GPS: 38.8,-122.5