SMS <scharf.steven@geemail.com> wrote in news:afVfk.33347$ZE5.32585
@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com:

> I'd like a smart-phone with WiFi. That limits me
> two two choices from Verizon. Neither has a good browser like the
> iPhone, but actually what's more important to me is the ability to
> create, edit, and store Word and Excel documents.

None of the Sellphone carriers are going to be selling anything that does
more than email, SMS and webpages they can control and RESELL. If they let
you have word processing, database access, big spreadsheets of important
numbers, that will use BANDWIDTH, which Sellphone companies now oppose
because they cannot sell it for a dollar a megabyte any more. So, they
simply don't sell any device that uses serious bandwidth. They put useless
little browsers on the phones that won't really display a real webpage
BECAUSE a real webpage, with all the spam Flash movies, giant moving GIF
files, ad after ad after ad of huge color pictures and embedded
JAVA/javascript USES BANDWIDTH. That's why WAP was invented. It uses no
bandwidth and has no ads to suck up the sellphone revenue.

The only mobile solution, so far until WiMax or something similar emerges,
is a tethered device, cable or bluetooth, to get the computer out of the
clutches of the sellphone company bean counters...or is that byte
counters?? Sellphone carriers have been very successful in thwarting this
end run around their control by removing any tethering firmware and any
Bluetooth interconnecting protocols, such as DUN, from the phone's
capabilities. Verizon seems the worst hobbler in the den. Most users
aren't savvy enough to hack the phones to restore functions, but for the
few who do we'll let the system keep a sharp eye out for "abusers" and
convince the dumbest amoung us that if they see an "abuser" using bandwidth
he's, somehow, going to trash their own service, a tactic that seems to
work very well.

$20 to $60 for email and webpages is very profitable. You can sell the
same bandwidth to a thousand people because they get really bored with the
webpages fast and TURN IT OFF, exactly what the carriers want.

They don't have a good browser for a REASON, not because they're not
capable of running it. Hell, I'm running Firefox 3 for Linux on the Nokia
N800, plugins and all!