I’ve been on the road for just about 4 years now and have longed to have fast Internet access with me. I’ve tried Wi-Fi at the truck stops and that works relatively well but the cost is a little more than I want to pay. Around $6.95 per 24 hours. It isn’t a bad pricing structure, but I don’t always get to stop at the truck stops with good Wi-Fi.

I’ve had Cingular’s EDGE network on my Treo 650 for almost two years. The speed is OK, just OK. The connectivity is awful. I can make a connection when the phone is tethered to the laptop and try to download e-mail and after a few minutes, I loose the connection. Very frustrating.

I’ve asked a few tech and mobile podcasters what their opinion was on getting reliable fast Internet on the road and the answer has been a constant EVDO with the PCMCIA card for the laptop. OK. Told my wife what I need to do and she says that we still need to check with Cingular (AT&T) to see if they offer anything like that. After all the explaining of what research I have already done, she still sent me to AT&T this morning to discuss this. I’m glad she did!

What a waste of time. I left the AT&T store thinking that they really don’t want to sell fast Internet. I saw many posters for the iPhone around the store and it just makes me feel bad for Apple. I believe that the iPhone really only meets one of the three things it’s supposed to be.

Mr. Jobs said that it’s a new iPod. Yes, but it’s memory is limited and so will be the battery life on it. It’s a phone. It’s probably going to be a great phone. It’s an Internet communicator. That will be so sort of true. It will certainly be true when you have Wi-Fi access, but the EDGE network will be a disaster. Of course, there are some rumors about a “better EDGE” network that the iPhone might take advantage of. We’ll see.

AT&T, after this mornings visit, it will be a very long time before I even consider talking with you again about any type of Internet access. I will be going to Verizon for EVDO. Mind made up!