Wireless Internet

Recently I was asked to explain internet for mobile phones.  Specifically, what service allows you to connect to the internet at anytime/anywhere.  To follow is a simplified overview of wireless internet meant for folks who are just getting into the wireless game. Background on wireless internet: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081117104733AAUGjcK Cell phone companies sell three major categories of service: Voice (measured in minutes) for speech communication Text (measured in number of texts — unlimited is not uncommon) AKA SMS (for plain text messages) or MMS (which is messages that include pictures or video) Data (measure in Megabytes or Gigabytes – eg 2GB/mo meaning 2 Gigabytes per month) this is what you would most commonly consider wireless internet.  Data covers any exchange of information including surfing the web, retrieving email, using apps (applications) that use the web for exchanging information. The iPhone and many smartphones work on both WiFi and Mobile Internet.  To be clear you should understand WiFi as wireless internet that uses a wireless router but comes from a wired connection.  Even commercially available HotSpots, like what you would find at Starbucks, have a wireless router on premises that broadcasts and receives signals from mobile devices and routes them back to a wired connection.  In your home, you would receive internet service from a provider like Comcast or Verizon through a wired connection that you would connect to a Cable Modem or DSL Modem.  To make this connection “wireless” requires a wireless router which would either be integrated into the modem or more likely as a separate piece of equipment.  The router serves two functions — both to take a single...