My Brief History of Mobile Internet (with usable speed at that time)

Analog Cellphone Data - 1998 (Usable Speed: 4800 bps)

It was back in '98 that I got wind of the first mobile data capabilities available on analog cellphones: the new Motorola phones could be tethered by cable and used like a land line. In those days, it was BC Tel (before it merged with Telus in 1999) that made them available.

I was able to use my Motorola flip phone, hooked up to my Dell Laptop (with a special modem) and roam all through the US in our motorhome with their roaming partner (Sprint) at a horrific monthly cost, at the astounding data rate of 4800 bps. You could actually use 9600 bps too, but it rarely worked and often dropped connections higher than 4800 bps, so I stuck to the slower speed most of the time.

We were billed by the minute for it in those days, whether you completed your incoming mail download or not. It often dropped the connection, which caused my mail server to deny re-connection until the timeout period had passed. Then, if you hadn't previously completed downloading all your messages, it would start start sending all the messages from the start once again. Great fun, and a great profit center for the phone company!

You can read the original article I wrote back then, if you like reading about things that don't work very well.

Rogers Digital PCS - 2001 (Usable Speed: 14,400 bps)

Read my article about this phone to find out what a disaster it was.

Satellite Dish - 2002 (Usable Speed: up to 128,000 bps)

A new company called Starband had started operating an internet service using geosynchronous satellites, and I signed up with them as soon as I saw it. I was comfortable with this technology as I was a trained RF specialist. For many years I had designed and built systems for cable, vhf/uhf, microwave, etc. I had also owned a satellite dish installation company, having installed many systems professionally.

Here is a short article about our experiences with our mobile satellite dish.

Satellite Phone 2004 (Usable Speed: 9600 bps)

We had expanded our horizons by this time and had started touring the Baja in Mexico, where we couldn't use the dish and didn't have a Mexican dial-up provider. We decided to rely on the network of internet cafes that were available, with the Globalstar low earth orbit satellite phone system. It worked reasonably well (although expensive), but you needed to be out on an open plain with a good view of the horizon to get the most effective service. You can read my article about using a satellite phone, if you want more info.

GSM GPRS Phone 2005 (Usable Speed: up to 64,000 bps)

We did this for a year, then started visiting mainland Mexico instead; you can visit our Mexico website to hear more about that. Once there, we found that Mexican GSM coverage was good (they sort of skipped the land line era in many places and made cell their primary system), and the phones had greatly improved with regards to data, using GPRS, so we switched to that system.

Another major improvement at that time was the switch from a 'time based' payment system to a 'data volume' based system. This meant you didn't really care how long it took to get your mail, and when you had a poor connection it was actually much more relaxing to use.

You can read my article about using the very nifty Nokia 6820 GSM/GPRS phone, if you want more information.

Nevertheless, roaming in Mexico gets very expensive and we found that buying a pay-as-you-go sim card in Mexico was the best solution, supplemented by using WiFi hotspots wherever possible.

GSM EDGE Phone 2007 (Usable Speed: up to 120,000 bps)

This year I bought my first HTC touch screen unit (TyTn), running Windows Mobile. It was great because I had fast EDGE data access, WiFi, and translation software on the same device! I will continue to use this as we travel in Mexico.

CDMA EVDO HTC Touch 2008 (Usable Speed: up to 3,000,000 bps)

My newest CDMA EVDO phone for when I'm back in the US and Canada (the current subject of this website). No more time or volume based billing, $7 per month for 'unlimited' internet. Finally!!