Of course if you have a device capable of receiving email and of telling you when it has received email, if you have a tarrif that allows you to send and receive emails inclusively, if you have a decent screen and a decent input facility.. you are bound to tick the box that says you don't think that your technology is going to get better in the next 6 months.

I wonder how long before the regular-as-clockwork-2am-EVERYBLOODYMORNING-spam makes people rethink the desire to be always on and to wish it would sometimes just go off?

its called the Power button. Use this when you want to sleep in peace.

We've been stuck in dial-up hell for at least four years past when it might have been tolerable. DSL and Cable are not available in our neighbourhood. WiMax is still in the future, still in the future, still in the future... Satellite is way overpriced and/or too slow.

Then, suddenly, without warning, the local CDMA cell phone operators announce an affordable 'unlimited' plan for (relatively) high speed Internet access via their 3G EVDO Rev. A data network. Check the map, check the map, check the map - YES! We're in!!!

A few phone calls later, a bit of waiting, some money changes hand, and I finally bring home the cute little Sierra Wireless 595U gadget. Maybe 30 minutes later I'm smurfing the web at between 1 and 2 Mbps (33x faster than dial-up).

Yesterday I even plugged the Mobe-gadget into the USB port on my Lappy and went for a drive. High speed Internet in my car. I tried some streaming 'Internet Radio' when mobile just for laughs. Think about the implications of that capability.

Choose your carrier carefully. Some are "$75" per month; others might end up billing you about $500,000 for the same data usage.

Now - back to YouTube. I've still got some catching-up to do...

They keep whining about spending so much on 3G and not being able to get people to use it - why don't they look at Japan, where mobile Internet browsing/email has been the norm for pretty much the past decade?

It's partly about tariffs. Data bundles are a fundamental part of tariffs in Japan - in the UK (and I gather the west in general), they're offered as an extra. The only exception I've seen to this is T-Mobile's web'n'walk.

It's also about ease-of-use and good software integration. Push email is by far the most commonly used function on a phone in Japan - text messaging became obselete a long time ago. The reason for this is similar to the tarriffs issue - email is not treated as an extra, but as one of the main functions of the phone. Thus it's as easy to get to and use as SMS.

You could argue it's a chicken/egg situation, where until people demand this kind of thing it's not going to happen... I just wish one of the networks would have the balls to bring about the (relatively simple) changes to tarriffs and software that could get things moving in the right direction - to the benefit of both consumers and networks.