Om Malik,
Sunday, July 13, 2008 at 12:27 PM PT
It
was over a decade ago when I got my first broadband connection — by
today’s comparison a very slow DSL connection from my then local
provider, Verizon Communications which then went by the name of Bell Atlantic.
At $60 a month (not including the cost of the modem), the service which
got around 256 Kbps on a good day (vs top speed of up to 640 kbps), was
really a novelty.
With the exception of many who worked in New York’s Silicon Alley,
not many cared about the expensive always-on connection. Being a
broadband nerd of sorts, I couldn’t care about the price tag and I
couldn’t wait to pay more to get more bandwidth.
I am reminded of that moment, of that thrill of experiencing web
without delays, thanks to the new iPhone and its ability to connect to 3G
network. I already can’t wait for AT&T to upgrade their network
from HSDPA to HSPA to HSPA+ to LTE so we can get faster and faster
broadband.
For now, all the best we can get on the iPhone 3G is HSDPA which has
a theoretical download speed of between 400 and 700 Kbps, though Apple
on it site says it is going to be 2.4x the speed of EDGE - about 100 Kbps. Still, I am going to go out on the limb and mark July 11 down as a red letter day for 3G wireless.
Don’t get me wrong — it isn’t the day 3G wireless was first
introduced in the US. Neither is iPhone the first 3G phone. I have had
3G phones, USB and PC Card modems for a while now. It isn’t the first
time I have used 3G broadband - I am on old hand at using EVDO to
connect laptop to the web, or connecting Nokia e61 to a 3G network
whenever I am in Europe, or using the Nokia N95 to snap-and-share photos and videos via one of the life streaming services.
Yet this is the first time, a 3G connection on a non-computer device
actually feels like a broadband connection. “This device is a true
game-changer. Why? The immediacy of the data at your fingertips is
huge. Imagine, looking up anything, anywhere,” is how AT&T Mobility
CEO Ralph de la Vega told me in a chat earlier this year.
In the US, especially iPhone is going to have a major impact, mostly
because are a PC-centric society constantly search for web like
experiences. (So far, most of the carriers have made their money off 3G computer connections. I am wondering how iPhone impacts (or not) 3G usage in Europe.)
I received the new iPhone 3G on Friday,
and since then I have been tinkering around it — a lot. My first (and
perhaps lasting) impression: the 3G speed is quite addictive and it
doesn’t take long to slowly start switching your daily compute tasks to
this device instead of reaching for your computer.
A lot of that is because iPhone has a generous screen and is very
easy to use, but more importantly it has a more than adequate browser,
making it an ideal candidate for being a “cloud client.”
All that was missing was a fast-enough connection that helped “off
source” some (or incase of others many) tasks from their computers.
The briskness with which I can surf web pages, it has become easy to
keep and eye on this and our other network blogs. The email shows up in
the inbox as quickly as on desktop. NetNewsWire’s iPhone App has
already become my preferred way to read RSS. Its ability to sync with
the desktop client over the web only adds to its utility. Facebook on
iPhone is almost infinitely more usable than its web counter part. (John Markoff is marveling at the pocket sized experience as well.)
Truphone’s new iPhone app makes it easy to place VoIP calls on the
iPhone, thereby making it less necessary for me to fire up the old
computer to call mom. It sure would be nice to see a Skype client for
iPhone. I am sure, over a period of time other habits will form —
including watching YouTube videos - which just got bearable, thanks to a faster connection.
More importantly, 3G allowed freed me from thinking about the
availability of a WiFi connection. Of course, if everyone else gets
into the same habit, as I suspect they would, this is going to put some
stress on AT&T’s 3G Network.
Going back to the early days of broadband, the thrill of doing
mundane web tasks faster and without tying up a phone line didn’t seem
as much in the beginning, but acted as a spark for the broadband
revolution. It wasn’t till Shawn Fanning unleashed Napster, the
broadband demand took off and eventually leading to innovations like
Skype, YouTube & Facebook.
I think from that perspective, the iPhone 3G is going to provide similar spark for wireless broadband. Just like touch and big screens
are becoming increasingly commonplace in high end phones, over next 12
months I won’t be surprised to find mobile device makers focusing
heavily on the Internet, while waiting for the elusive killer app,
which none has seen, just yet. Despite the tight control of carriers on
wireless spectrum, this could be the start of a new wireless wave.
Much
like the way Safari has handled Quicktime videos on former versions of
the firmware, the new 2.0 release now allows you to see embedded
YouTube content with your iPhone or iPod Touch on Safari. Click and it
hands off video duties to the YouTube player. Really, that's better
than watching it embedded, and makes the handheld Web browsing world
that much closer to its desktop
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