Fully arming the road warrior: embedded broadband technology and service is nearly here

The telecom world tends to start at the top, define the service, build the network, specify the handsets and then roll out a finished product. An IT/Internet approach tends (just tends) to assemble technical capabilities - each one usable and valuable in its own right - and keeps refining and extending them until suddenly, someone works out how to plug them all together to create a compelling new service.

What we might call the IT side of the broadband data access business is on the cusp of that happy moment when several elements seem to have developed to the point where something bigger than the sum of its parts can be concocted.  We're talking coherent laptop roadwarrioring (waring?) here.

To now, as we all know, getting broadband access via your laptop while in foreign parts is one of those IT plug-and-swear affairs - all dangling dongles and unique set-up routines, often involving going down to fill in a form at the front desk of a hotel to get WiFi and then, having your time run out and going back again to fill out another form - you know the sort of thing. Coherent and transparent it ain't.

Eventually it must end. Eventually it all becomes transparent, just like roaming with a cellphone. Instead of having to get out your data dongle, you should be able to mouse up a connection from your screen because the radio technology is embedded in the computer. And instead of all sorts of dialogue screens and credit card number entering, the system should find your global service provider (via either 3G orWiMax or WiFi - whichever the best/cheapest) and voila (as they used to say down in the hotel front desk) you have access.

Well, the experts say we're about to get there. A recent report from Gartner says the elements are in place for one or more service providers to take the thing by the scruff of the neck and give us the services we all deserve - at an affordable cost of course.