Wireless Broadband FTW!

I’m doing a lot of travel at the moment, attending to clients interstate. This means I spend a lot of time in taxis and airport lounges. I don’t quite qualify for QantasClub yet (give it another couple of weeks), so I can’t just plug into free internet access of any kind.

But I have wireless broadband. It is awesome.

Given that this is Australia, where broadband sucks total ass compared to any other country with a real knowledge based economy, like you lucky people in the U.S., Japan or Korea, the level of awesomeness is relative. Trying to do this using my mobile has proved painful in the past, and stupidly expensive, thanks to Telstra. But let’s examine why I think it’s awesome:

Prepaid mobile broadband through 3 has proved to be relatively inexpensive. I use Internode for ADSL2+ at home, and wireless broadband costs about half that. I’m using about a third to half of the data I’d push through at home, and run a VPN from the laptop to the servers at home, so I’m doubling up on some traffic. I also don’t tend to watch YouTube videos as much (because I’m working), but I do check out the odd link of animated LOLcats, or whatever my friends send me. I read some blogs, again, not as much as at home because I’m busy.

But it’s the flexibility that I love. I can whip out the laptop whenever I like and jump on the internet. This is an amazing feeling. Just super-tremendous. The kind of feeling where I wonder “Why on earth didn’t I do this earlier?” and “How am I ever going to do business without this?”.

And yes, I just typed this while waiting for my plane, having a coffee at 8:15am on a Monday. I love living in the 21st century.