ReasonedResponse.com

For more than a decade, "untethering" was the core mantra of technology geeks.

We cut the landlines for telephone service, opting instead for the better features and lower costs of mobile phones.

We made Wi-Fi a national obsession, left behind the limitations of Ethernet cables and power cords for laptops that could be used in places as obscure as airplanes and city parks, and replaced wires with Bluetooth for personal headsets and microphones.

All of which makes it curious that I, like millions of other geeks worldwide, are busy getting tethered again.

Not in the old sense of tying oneself down to a stationary cable. But by replacing Wi-Fi connections with a high-speed data connection through a cell phone or card. All of the major cell phone providers are now offering an option to "tether" your data-enabled phone to your computer as a means of getting broadband service. Using a USB cable, the data-enabled cell phone becomes a "modem" through which a PC or laptop can access the Internet.

This "tethering" arrangement isn't yet all that it could be. After all, EVDO version A - the dominant form of data transmission for CDMA cell phones - transfers data at a relatively anemic rate of less than 500 Kbps.

That's about one-third of the standard DSL or cable transmission rate. HSDPA, the data transmission favored by GSM providers in the US, isn't appreciably better.

And the cost is higher than simply using Wi-Fi, since you must pay for an unlimited data service plus a monthly tethering fee of about $15.

Still, there are some excellent reasons why broadband users may want to take a second look at this "Cell-Fi" service over Wi-Fi or the someday-may-actually-arrive WiMAX for their wireless Internet service:

It's more secure. Wi-Fi, as you will note from my many scathing references to it, is somewhat less safe than playing with scorpions. Any time you make a Wi-Fi connection, you place yourself, your company and your friends at serious risk. Cell-Fi, by contrast, has built-in security capabilities that are far superior. In fact, for the average hacker a cellular data transmission is virtually impossible to hack.

It's more available. Let's face it, Wi-Fi's limitations are extreme. It won't penetrate buildings. Or trees. Or much of anything else. Even without obstacles, the signal doesn't penetrate very far. And trying to find a signal and connection even in "hot spots" can be daunting unless you are prepared to pay handsomely.

It's more reliable than satellite. Living in the country, I use a satellite as my primary Internet connection. It's an acceptable broadband service, unless the weather is very bad or some jerk is tying up the uplink trying to swap video files on a peer-to-peer network. Then the service can range from very slow to non-existent. On the other hand, I can tether at speeds only slightly lower than satellite and with substantially less lag time.<

I'm not the only broadband geek getting into tethering. A report from Infonetics Research predicts the mobile data market will quadruple in size over the next three years, with more than 144 million subscribers by 2011.

That growth will be driven by upgrades to HSDPA and EVDO to deliver download speeds of 1.5 Mbps or better over the next two years. And further reductions in pricing that will make the use of either a tethered cell phone or an "air card" more attractive to mainstream consumers

Broadband via cell phone is still a work in progress, and it will be a few years before there is enough movement in both price and performance to make it feasible for the masses. But for selected applications and locations, getting tethered may be a welcome trend in broadband access.