A student can now sit under a tree with a laptop and research an assignment on Internet. I look forward to the day when I won't need to search for that seat on Amtrak with a plug for my laptop or find that airport phone with a dataport. I'll merely be able to sit down and start working. As with mobile wireless, there are numerous applications for data access using fixed wireless. Utility companies will be able to get readings from meters.
Vendors can monitor when vending machines run low.
A petroleum company is now using a cellular-based system to check the corrosion of gas and oil pipelines in remote areas. This service is now deployed in other countries such as China, India, and the United Kingdom. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only one in three hundred people has a telephone. Wireless will allow less developed countries to leapfrog traditional poles and wires as they connect their citizens. We hope that wireless operators will soon provide the same service in the United States.