I’m thinking of canceling my home data connectivity and going with a 3G/4G wireless data connection from Sprint.
Here’s the argument for it:
I’m not home very much. I work a lot (and there is plenty of internet there), and I spend about two thirds of my weekends away from home. This is something that I expect will become more–rather than less–intense as time goes on. It doesn’t make sense to pay for a full Internet connection here that I barely use.
My bandwidth utilization is, I think, relatively low. I’ve turned on some monitoring tools, so I’ll know a bit more later, but in general, most of my actual use of the data connection is in keeping an SSH connection with my server alive. I download email, refresh a few websites more obsessively than I’d like (but I’m getting better with that), and that’s sort of it. I’ve also started running a reverse proxy because that makes some measure of sense.
I find it difficult to use the data package on my cellphone. The fact that I get notified of all important emails on my phone, has disincentivized me from actually attending to my email in a useful way, and other than the occasional use of googlemaps (and I really should get an actual GPS to replace that…) If I get the right Wireless modem, however, it would be quasi-feasible to pipe my phone through the wireless Internet connection, so this might be a useful clarification.
The arguments against it are typical:
The technology isn’t terribly mature, or particularly well deployed.
Metered bandwidth is undesirable.
Sprint sucks, or has in my experience, and the other providers are worse.
The questions that remain in my mind are:
How well do these services work in moving vehicles? Cars? Trains?
How much bandwidth do I actually use?
Is this practical?
Feedback is, as always, very much welcomed here. I’m not in a huge rush to act, but I think it makes sense to feel things out. It also, I think posses an interesting question about how I (and we) use the Internet. Is the minimalist thing I do more idealistic than actual? I know that we have a pretty hard time conceptualizing how big a gigabyte of data actually is in practical usage. Further research is, clearly, indicated.
Edit: This plan would have to rely on the fact that I might be spending a large amount of time in a city with unmetered 4G access with sprint. I’ve used a gig and a half of transfer to my laptop’s wireless interface in 5 days. I think that would coincide with when I would be doing the heaviest traffic anyway. I wonder how unlimited the unlimited is…
tycho garen 04 February 2010