Originally posted on April 1, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
Whenever I get cabin fever from working too much inside my house I would often bring my laptop, go to coffee shop and work from there. Free hotspots have really helped in making me more productive. Of course, productivity can only happen when there is an existing hotspot near you.
I discovered this limitation when I decided to accompany my wife in one of her errands as a magazine editor. She needed to visit a number of commercial shops and look for items that can be featured in her magazine. Hoping that this would be a great way to spend some time with her while at the same time catch up with work, I decided to join her. The plan was for her to walk around these establishments while I go look for a coffee shop where I can work. Good idea, right?
It wasn’t. The commercial area we went too didn’t have a hotspot and the one area that did have Wi-Fi was restricted to subscribers of a Wi-Fi service. I was well and truly screwed. This incident really drove home the convenience of having a ready internet connection wherever you go. Subscriptions to a Wi-Fi service is really not a good idea because it is still dependent on an available hotspot. This made me really see the value of HSDPA based internet connections. With just a small gadget plugged to your lappie, you can access the internet literally wherever you are — in the car, in the middle of a mall, even on the beach! As long as the area is within range of a mobile network you’ve got internet.
With the level of mobility that my work requires from me especially in the near future HSDPA will give me the productivity edge that I need.