Although you'd think going wireless would be pretty straightforward, it turns out that it's easy to get confused regarding the various technologies available. The problem is that providers of wired broadband internet try to blur the line between wireless networking and wireless internet in their marketing campaigns in an attempt to gain more customers. The former is only meant to be used in and around your home while the latter can be used all throughout your city. The difference is huge, but once you learn more about the technologies involved, you will be able to make the best buying decision.
Why would cable and DSL providers want to try to deceive customers? The answer is that they're short on innovation and are starting to get desperate. Although wired broadband has been the number one choice for discriminating internet users for many years, the future has a completely different outlook. Portable computing devices such as laptops, netbooks, and tablet PCs are going to start dominating the consumer landscape in the coming years, which means that people will be needing true wireless internet solutions to go along with them. Cable and DSL simply can't offer those kinds of services; the best they can do is give you wireless connectivity in and around your home using Wifi. In an attempt to have their names associated with the "wireless" word, cable and DSL companies will say they can provide you with Wifi, but as you know now Wifi is simply a home networking solution and nothing more.
The only way you can use the internet all throughout your city and in a mobile way is to go cellular. Although cellular connections of the past might not have been able to keep pace with cable or DSL, 4G internet has bridged the gap and offers blazing fast speeds. In fact, some people might even experience higher transfer rates by making the switch to cellular internet, depending on the plan they're signed up for of course. The point is that this kind of connection is a completely different technology than Wifi and is capable of doing a lot more than it.
There is one potential issue you're going to have to deal with though: compatibility. While there is only one common standard with Wifi networking, there are a few competing and incompatible standards in the 4G realm. Although they might appear to be nearly identical on the surface when considering transfer rates, coverage, reliability and security, there is one significant difference that might be hard to notice if you're not well acquainted with cellular solutions. Some providers will place a data cap on your service, which means that you will only be able to transfer a certain amount of data before you will either have to pay more money or have your service throttled down immensely. If these caps were very high, perhaps this wouldn't be an issue, but the caps can be so low that you might go over your limit after downloading a couple of large files. Thankfully, there is a cellular option out there that doesn't limit you: Wimax. In the end, it is the best choice out there when it comes to wireless connectivity.
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