Is this the "big" iPhone that has been speculated upon?

Looking at the market now for portable computers, nearly every major player has built-in 3G/3.5G capability in some device they sell, and some have had one for some time (a year is a LONG time in tech-blurb).

The technology seems here to stay - next-gen-wise it's LTE vs 4G, and Apple may know something we don't about who is likely to come out tops (read an article somewhere about 4G likely to boss LTE in most of Apple's major markets), so again it makes sense to integrate.

Finally, and most importantly, user experience. I've used mobile broadband devices from three of the 5 major uk providers on my mac in the last 3 years, and i can safely say that the user experience sucks because it's not consistent.. Guess who would take grim offence to Mac users being put through such pains :)..

Go Jobsey Go Jobsey Go!

We can't stop the rhythm baby,

Go Jobsey Go Jobsey Go!

We can't stop the rhyyyythhhmm!

It will overpriced and locked in like every other bit of crap Apple has churned out in the past few years.

They can take the data card and stuff it. What's wrong with making it easy to use your cellphone as a 3G modem, using Bluetooth or Wifi? Why tie your WAN access to one device? Why carry on two devices with separately billed WAN connections?

The artificial limitations imposed by the network operators pretend you pay three, four or even five times for the same service: mobile voice, cellphone data, laptop data, home data, and home voice!

With the economy in total disarray, pretending that customers sign up for yet another contract for a service they are already enjoying is beyond ludicrous, it is abusive. What I would like to see is some consolidation and lower prices, not more bills.

(Paris, because she does like to pay)

Seriously, do you believe that an internet-centric device needs to be paired after start-up, or don't you think it should be WWAN connected within 30 secondsor less of being brought out of standby?

Why not use dial-up instead for that 'instant-on' experience? Perhaps you don't remember the days of evolving from a 14.4 PC card to a 36.6 and ooooohhhing at th experience.

Your phone is unlikely to have a decent HSPA connectivity (if we take the iPhone as 'typical' it's 3.6Mbps downlink and only 384 R99 uplink) whereas an embedded module will be at least 7.2 DL and 2.0/5.8UL. Plus it has decent gain diversity antennas (not a poxy strip antenna that's actually shielded by your hand as it's at the bottom of the (i)phone). If you think none of that makes a difference you should post on good housekeeping instead.