But with wireless broadband, many consumer complaints are being traced to compatibility issues between an operator's network and the software installed on a laptop or netbook computer, said Tim Deluca-Smith, a vice president for marketing at WDS Global, a company in Poole, England, that provides technical support for 40 wireless operators and mobile makers in Europe and North America.
Many of today's wireless broadband providers still provide wholesale access voluntarily through "mobile virtual network operator" agreements, which is how Google provides its Google Fi wireless broadband service.
Add the competition posed by cable and wireless broadband, and many experts say suppliers will be forced into a major consolidation.
Over time, consumers will have many options for buying customized wireless broadband plans, said Pat McCarthy, a vice president for global marketing at Telcordia, a maker of bandwidth management software for operators based in Piscataway, New Jersey.
International carriers like Korean Air, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines already have wireless broadband service on many routes; fees for using it vary.
And while Verizon claims that in Boston they are finally doing fiber to the home to deliver wireline broadband, it is a 'trial' to instead deploy and substitute wireless broadband, which still requires many wireless antennas to be connected to a fiber optic wire.
Sierra Wireless offers many wireless modem cards for laptops.
Many wireless credit-card readers already include such countermeasures, said Jun.
Many wireless carriers even offer their own album pages to display your phone photos.
"Our product is network software that has many wireless applications," said Gail Redmond, vice president for marketing.
