I do that now at home with 802.11. Not on a handset though.
So you are admitting Qualcomm is trying to supress adoption of free or low cost broadband internet services, right?
Typical.
What are the folks who live in rural areas and places where the cable and phone company will not install broadband to do?
The SD city council is probably less than happy with the local broadband providers.
Tucson is installing free WIFI downtown. I would say its a draw to businesspeople who wish to access the internet, without being scalped by the phone companies.
There are much worse things local governments can and do get into.
When the cell providers have useable broadband service that costs less than fixed cable, I will beleive it.
Meanwhile my investment money is going into GTEL and strattelites.
"What are the folks who live in rural areas and places where the cable and phone company will not install broadband to do"
This won't help those rural areas, at least not on a large scale.
I live in one of those areas. The gov't is not going to install "free wifi" for me, because they can't backhaul it cost effectively.......same reason why the cable company doesn't provide cable and DSL isn't available. It just costs too much money to run fiber to backhaul the WiFi to the internet.
Certainly not. Qualcomm has a vested interest in broadband wireless becoming as widespread as possible. Every broadband wireless handset or device (notebook PC, Blackberry, etc) that is sold increases QC income. QC has done everything in its power to accelerate the adoption of the latest, fastest, greatest bandwidth technologies. The faster that all happens, the more chipsets Qualcomm sells.
I think satellites are a good investment also.