Even with recent improvements, competition remains weak in wired broadband — for many Americans, it’s the local cable company or slow, phone-line-based DSL. But if you need mobile broadband for a smartphone or tablet, you’re blessed with four nationwide carriers yearning to earn your business, plus countless resellers of their networks.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could fire your ground-bound internet provider and give your business to one of the wireless services instead?
The obvious answer might seem “of course not, I need a real computer!”, a mobile-only connection can make sense if you can fit your online life into a smaller screen. And in some ways, it’s too bad that isn’t an option for more of us.
What if a mobile device is your only device?
A few things have changed in recent years to make wondering if wireless broadband can replace wired seem less crazy than it might have when mobile web access meant poking through text-only sites on a flip phone’s screen.
Today’s mobile devices are far more capable than their predecessors. They run exponentially better apps and connect to a far vaster universe of mobile-compatible sites. And a growing fraction of Americans have responded by making their mobile gadget their only means of home internet access.
An April 2016 report by the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications & Information Administration drew on 2015 Census Bureau data to find that 20% of U.S. households relied solely on mobile broadband at home.
Separate surveys by the Pew Research Center found a lower percentage of smartphone-only internet access: 12% in 2016, up from 8% in 2013.
It’s not exactly as far-fetched to supplant your wired internet with a wireless connection as it once seemed. Consumers can now avoid busting a plan’s data cap, thanks to AT&T (T) and Verizon’s (VZ) decision to offer “unlimited” (in reality, unmetered) data plans much like those already sold by Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (TMUS).
But that might not work for you
But most of us don’t rely only on mobile devices and shouldn’t. Even with recent advances in making more sites phone-friendly, many tasks remain difficult on a pocket-sized screen.
Pew’s research noted that. A 2015 study found that 47% of smartphone users couldn’t get job-related information to show up right on their devices, while 37% ran into problems trying to submit documents required to apply for a job.
Just typing at length on a phone can get exasperating. Having to finish a post on my phone last year was among the most excruciating work experiences I’ve had in awhile.