Why can't we have ubiquitous WiFi?

The telcos all have wifi plans. But that is where roaming does not work. So to have access to wifi, your choices are all expensive.

• Only go places with free wifi.
  
• Pay t_mobile so you have borders, Starbucks and airports.
  
• Pay other providers.
  
• Work for a comapany the pays for iPass.
  

So it ends up you either can't find a seat or your provider is not the hotspot of choice. And do you really want to pay multiple providers? If you live somewhere you are in range of a wifi provider then cool. It's an option. But if you like me and pay comcast $45/month. Paying 1-2 other providers makes the cost of internet access too high when you never know if it is available when you want it.

On and off I've examined the whole cell phone modem thing. 10 uears ago I concocted a serial cable that had my palmIII dialing an ISP through my StarTac.

With bluetooth this isn't supposed to be so bad. It isn't if you own a Win PC. Work if you want to do this via a Mac.

I found the instruction and not can use the edge modem function of my cell phone to get approx ISDN speeds.

This does not work so well. The best I got was 28kpbs. Not good enough these days.