Things change and don't

There is no reason to go back to the office today. For today... this is my office. Tagaytay City, March 7, 2007.

More than two years ago I was sitting a few feet from the table where I am seated now, connected to the world using my trusty HP NC 6120 with its 15" XGA screen. Things had changed since than. XGA screens are history. We no longer count RAM in terms of megabytes but in terms of gigabytes. The 6 pound laptops are being replaced by 2 pound 10" netbooks. But the innovation which caused the biggest change in how we do things on a mobile computer has sadly remained the same.

Two years ago we were talking about what was soon to come, mobile connectivity via WIMAX, faster and faster 3G, integrated 3G in our laptops. Built in 3G in laptops is available, but the offerings are few. WIMAX is coming, from Globe Telecom but as a fixed wireless solution rather than connectivity for mobile devices. Smart has a few HSDPA capable cellsites, but the networks is still primarily a 384kbps solution. From a mobile connectivity standpoint, after the heady innovations in 2006-2007, things have pretty much remained the same.

What brough this tirade about? Well I decided to run a speedtest from Smart 3G here on the second floor of Starbucks in Tagayatay City at One Destination, Tagaytay City and was rewarded by a nice new interface on speedtest.net, but the test yielded dissapointing results.




Smart Communications is promising that it will rolling out a 5.8 mbps network soon. None to soon if you ask me. From the new speedtest.net interface it looks like on one is interested in measuring kbps anymore and the new interface is geared to measuring mbps, and we are talking double digit figures here.

It looks like built in 3G will become common by the end of the year in the tiny netbooks which made their appearance in 2007. I hope this is the case, because the developments in cellular phones are really starting to outpace the development of our notebooks.

Anyway, enough of this rant for now. I need to get back to work, and yes, despite my complaints, mobile internet still lets me work from almost anywhere. And that is still a very good thing.