A recent development in broadband internet is the ability to use cellular phone towers as wide scale wireless for computers. The technology is in its infancy, and is still subject to a few problems – depending on what kind of situation it is required in, it can still be a viable option.

The major drawback to cellular broadband is that it is still affected, sometimes severely so, by atmospheric conditions. The quality of a signal can vary from day to day even if the equipment has not been changed or moved.

Walls are another thing that can affect the quality of cellular broadband. Normally the modem needs to be on a window sill or someplace where it can get a clear line of sight towards the transmitter. Since the modem should also be kept out of direct sunlight there is often a conflict of ideals, having the modem somewhere near a window since glass blocks much less of the signal than wood or stone, but not having the modem where it can be exposed to long periods in the sun.

Cellular broadband tends to be much slower and more expensive than conventional broadband. Speeds are much more limited because of the long distance radio waves need to travel, and the format generally entails much slower connection rates, as slow as 512K/s with a normal working maximum of 2Mb/s. There also tend to be much more stringent caps to the allowed amount of data that can be downloaded each month.

On the plus side, there is no other format of broadband quite as useable. Mobile phones tend to have browsers that have limited capabilities; cellular broadband is broadband a normal computer can use with a conventional web browser and associated tools.

Wherever the modem or USB stick can be powered and can reach one cellular tower, full broadband is useable, even if this is using an inverter in a car powering a laptop. This opens the service up much more for travelling salesmen or other demographics of workers who are frequently on the move.

Since simple web browsing and even designing websites is not bandwidth intensive, normal usage still generally does not exceed the limits even though these limits are much less than other broadband packages.

If considering cellular broadband, there are certainly things that have to be carefully considered and weighed up before making the final decision, as contracts for such services are normally similar to conventional cell phone contracts, both in duration and in penalty for early termination. As such it is important to ensure that the environment such a modem is going to be used in is as ideal as possible for signal reception.

For certain situations the pros of cellular internet can outweigh the cons, and the solution may be acceptable – even desirable – for some demographics. But it is still a new and emerging technology with a number of issues that continue to hinder it’s development, and should be approached with care.