What role do broadband providers like Bell South play in todays internet addicted population? I see internet addiction as a big, and increasing, problem these days. I have to say, I suffer from a touch of it myself. There was an (all too true) article in a joke newspaper that I read the other day that was about how an internet outage would make us all more productive. I also hear that kids now spend over 20 hours per week online. Back in MY day, I was lucky if I spend 20 minutes a week!

So, do broadband providers have any responsibility here? Well, much as we all like to blame others for our problems, I don’t really think we can point the blame at broadband internet. Sure, it’s easier to become addicted to broadband than to dial-up. Broadband, in general, is always on and always convenient. With dial-up, you at least have to rejoin the “real world” when your sister needs to call her boyfriend for the 5th time that day (again, I’m thinking of back when we used dial-up in the 1990′s) I guess the price of convenience is the possibility for overuse; I’d say it’s a fair price.

Free wireless broadband is starting to be offered here in town, but you definitely won’t get the same speed as if you where connected to Verizon internet service. Not where I live, of course, but it’s there in the downtown areas. I was on the phone with a friend who was visiting from out of town. He asked me where he could connect to someone’s broadband wireless. Just then he looked down and saw the sign pained on the pavement “wireless, town of Chapel Hill.” I like this idea on the surface, but I always have to wonder about unintended side effects.

First, if cities providing free internet catches on, how will this effect the Broadband industry? It could decrease subscriptions. I wonder if this will affect cafes and coffee shops that offer wireless internet. As a far out idea, will we start seeing lots of homeless people toting laptops to get the free internet? People basically throw away laptops once they are a couple years old so it could happen! Finally, I know it’s not really free. Nothing, not even bandwidth, is really free. Someone pays and that someone is the taxpayer, in this case. I guess I am paying for it anyway, so I’d better use it!

These days it seems easy to steal some bandwidth. You just open your laptop and look for open wireless networks. Can’t do this if you are on dialup internet. Sure, they could give you viruses and expose you to hackers, but it is just so tempting to get the free broadband. It’s really hard to think of this as stealing. Is anyone really affected? Does anyone really get hurt? I remember hearing of a report of some man being arrested for stealing wireless from a coffee shop, because he sat in his car outside instead of going in. Is this where things are headed?

I’ll admit that it’s wrong to steal, and as someone who knows my way around a computer I know that something is really being stolen. You see, whoever set up that wireless network paid for that bandwidth from the ISP. If I’m using some of it at a given time, the person who paid has less to use. However, broadband provides so much bandwidth that, in general, no one would ever notice. That doesn’t justify it, though. If you steal and no one notices, it’s is still stealing!

I keep getting ads about switching to Charter Internet as a broadband internet provider, but I remain skeptical.  How well does it really work?  So far, I don’t know anyone personally that has been brave enough to try it out.  I don’t think that most people are willing to try a new technology, let alone one as important as their ISP, without a word-of-mouth recommendation.  That’s why I think Charter Internet is clearly barking up the wrong tree with their advertising.

I haven’t seen any offer that they’ve had yet that says that I can try their service for free with no strings attached.  They just keep sending me ad after ad with the same information.  There’s no way that it will get me to switch from my current cable broadband provider, even if it is less expensive.  I can’t afford to be without my internet!  To try them out, I would keep my old service and get their new one as well.  Without a free trial, though, it just makes no sense.  So, until someone else I know is brave enough to try out this new technology, I’m attached to my cable modem.

Internet that’s everywhere and super quick has a lot of advantages.  Many people race to get the latest gadget, little mini supercomputers that are always online, with good reason. With the dawn of mobile high speed internet providers, you can leave your computer at home and access your data from anywhere. Why tie your data to a desktop, when with broadband access it can be online, which means it’s anywhere you are.

This is called virtualization and it’s more places than you might think. Google already lets you access documents and mail from any computer. Microsoft already lets you keep traveling profile, but is also designing an operating system that will go with you, wherever you go. Eventually you will be able to take all of your favorite movies and music from anywhere, without dragging around clunky video or music players, and worrying about how to plug things in. This is the future of broadband, and it’s going to be everywhere!