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A Wireless Hotspot For Your Car — Why Not?

Posted by timothy on from the not-wijacking-just-drafting dept.

nk497 writes "UK mobile operator 3 has unveiled a wireless hotspot for cars. It's essentially a repackaged version of their MiFi wireless router, which lets users create their own wireless hotspot using the 3G network. While drivers will hopefully steer away from using the web at the wheel, 3 predicts the mobile hotspot will let passengers entertain themselves as well as offer a hookup to email, music and traffic data."

12 of 135 comments (clear)

  1. Car hotspot? by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not 'Why not?', but rather 'Why?'

    1. Re:Car hotspot? by eln · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you've got people at your beach party asking where they can go to check their email, you're doing it wrong.

    2. Re:Car hotspot? by zach_the_lizard · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then the carrier is probably going to be angry that they went over the unadvertised bandwidth caps, charge them more, and cut them off.

      --
      SSC
    3. Re:Car hotspot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why you ask?

      Because I'm rarely outside of wifi distance from my or my wife's car.
      Because my car has it's own battery and backup generator.
      Because I want to access my car's door locks, alarm system, etc.. directly without paying a 3rd party like On-Star.
      Because I want to connect my car to my home automation for too many new capabilities to list.

      But most importantly.... Because it's cool!

  2. Sign me up by quantumplacet · · Score: 3, Insightful

    will work great with this:
    http://www.amazon.com/Mobile-Office-WM-01-Laptop-Steering/dp/B000IZGIA8/ref=pd_sim_auto_1

  3. brilliant tracking by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why put a GPS tracker on the car in a mandatory and inflammatory fashion, when you can simply embed it in a product that's too good for the masses to pass up?

  4. And if this was verizon by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They would chase you down with their black van equipped 'bandwidth compliance team' then charge you for 3 full connections, retroactively, for 12 months.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  5. Why?? by Itninja · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Anyone I've had in my car for the past several years, especially anyone who has an interest in being 'entertained' in a car, already had their own mobile internet and/or networkable device. Why would anyone want to splice an already-slow 3G connection between several people and/or devices?

    --
    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
  6. Re:O goody by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why 'now' and not years ago when people started buying smartphones that could do all that?

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    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  7. Why? by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One word: kids. Drop one of these in place, hand each of 5 kids a Nintendo DS, and watch them play games and leave you alone for the entire trip (At $190, even the new DS XL is cheaper than a netbook, as well as traveling better.) I already have an AC inverter plugged into the "cigarette lighter" DC plug for the purpose of recharging Nintendos and cellphones.

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  8. I think it's time for the self-driving car by dr2chase · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because it's pretty clear that the humans aren't paying attention to the road anymore.

  9. The most practical use I can see for this: by Max+Threshold · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Uploading audio to your car while you're sitting at your desk.