Despite the exorbitant costs for hotel stays in Denver during the week of the convention, the Sheraton Denver Hotel still expects you to pay $20/day for Internet access (albeit loitering in the lobby access is free). The entire Pepsi Center is about to be lit up with 3,334 miles of fiber and supposedly Google will be setting up a Big Tent for WiFi bloggers, but I have to wonder what happens when thousands of people will be jamming each other over the same piece of radio spectrum and how much access we'll have without leaving our seats.
Both Verizon and Sprint charge about $60/month for the data plans, and I'm not terribly impressed by the expected 2-year committment or having to switch to a different cell phone carrier. 3G Ipod would be great, but watching Julie click through long URL links on her phone makes me realize that it's better to have a laptop in front of you. Perhaps one of the telecom lobbying representatives in Denver will read this blog and realize that they should provide all delegates with free EVDO service for the next year...or the Sheraton Hotel will fess up with their corporate scam and offer complimentary service in our rooms.
So instead I've spent the entire morning and afternoon hacking the firmware for my cell phone to enable dial-up Internet access, which enables me to login from anywhere with wireless voice reception. The carriers have disabled this feature in newer phones, and I tried to tweak the NAI settings before realizing that I had to downgrade to an earlier version to have this ability. So with an extra 9-cell battery and a Canon digital camera with a teleconverter lens that my dad bought for me, let's see how well we do to send back updates....
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