High speed internet is not available to everyone – forget the commercials that cover the airwaves. Living in a rural community can make it impossible to enter into the world that exists on the internet today. Dialup may be the only way to surf the web and that means missing out on many of the downloads and websites around the Web.

When AT&T bought out Bellsouth, they agreed to have high speed internet service available to everyone in their service range by the end of the year. That was 2007. By December of 2007, we realized that getting AT&T high speed was a dream (or delusion).

Satellite was not a top choice. Or location keeps us from always getting a good signal for our television and that’s not something to be easily dealt with over the internet, particularly when you are in the middle of working online. Besides, the two satellite companies that serviced the area wanted a small fortune to install and then another small fortune each month.

Cable was the ideal solution. It offered the fastest speeds around and there was no limit to access or connections. Only the cable company claimed our location was unserviceable. For just a few thousand dollars they would be glad to MAKE us serviceable.

After being disappointed by the unfulfilled promises of AT&T and after too many hours waiting for dialup to download, we bit the bullet. We paid the ransom to get the high speed – let’s just see if it’s really worth all the hype and trouble.

Recently there was a news show on that had the two anchors discussing the smartphones. They were comparing the new cell phones to laptops. In their opinions, the new phones were capable of doing much of what a laptop can do.

I can understand their points – to some extent. If you are carrying around a laptop or notebook to check emails when you are traveling or other simple computer tasks then one of the smartphones would work just as well. The problem is that few people who carry around a laptop or notebook are limiting their work to simple tasks.

For many of the people who have a entire bad devoted to their mobile computer needs a cell phone just doesn’t have the capabilities to do what needs to be done. Even if it did have the power and storage, the keypad is just not large enough to accomplish complicated tasks.

Although one of the two anchors predicted that the newer smartphones would eliminate the need for laptop and notebook computers, I think that day is a long way off. There are too many tasks that need to be done that require the larger and stronger laptop.

Still, it will be interesting to see what how small technology will be able to get in the future.