3G, or not 3G - that is the question Whether 'tis nobler in the mall to suffer The speeds and passwords of outrageous Wi-Fi Or to upgrade against a sea of troubles And by subscribing end them.
This soliloquy appears in the original version of Shakespeare's most famous play: Tablet, Prince of Denmark. The title and some of the words changed over the years, of course…
Now that we are well into Boxing Month, various Canadians are thinking about buying a tablet computer or exchanging the one they got from Santa for a different version. The biggest question I keep hearing is "can I get away with the Wi-Fi-only version, or do I need the 3G model?"
For those who don't know much about the tablet market, the current best-selling tablet comes (ignoring different memory capacity) in two flavours. One that connects to the internet ONLY over Wi-Fi and one that has two radios, that dual mode allowing you to connect using either Wi-Fi or third-generation (3G) cellular data technology. That extra radio ain't cheap: 3G costs $130 more than the Wi-Fi-only version.
What are Canadians choosing? A large domestic carrier recently told me that about 40% of their customers are picking 3G. That roughly matches conversations I have had with salespeople at electronics stores selling the tablets: about half of buyers are Wi-Fi and half are 3G.
As a note, that doesn't seem to be the case everywhere. Although Americans are in a similar range (maybe a little lower at 30-40% 3G), the Western European experience is very different, in a couple of ways. Not only is tablet adoption sharply lagging behind North America, about 90% of their tablets are Wi-Fi only.
No one seems to have a good theory for why the big regional difference. It isn't anything obvious: I was in France last week and bought a MicroSIM card for my tablet so I could try out the European cellular networks. The price was fine: higher than Canada, but without a European bank account I couldn't get the most affordable plan. Coverage wasn't as good as Toronto most of the time, but being able to use it underground in the Metro was a very cool offset (attention TTC!)
So why are people in any country picking the Wi-Fi only models? Tablets are already a fairly expensive device, and one that is at this time still mainly purchased by relatively affluent early adopters. It seems unlikely that the $130 is the biggest reason.
Based on some utterly statistically invalid samples I have taken, most of the Wi-Fi-only buyers are making a few inter-related bets. They expect that most of the time they want to use their tablet; they will be in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot. For some this is due to using it exclusively in their home or workplace.
Others are expecting the number of hotspots to keep growing. That is reasonable: as I have discussed in a past column, there are limits to how much data traffic the carriers can provide over scarce cellular spectrum. In Canada and globally, carriers will increasingly encourage consumers to offload at least some of their traffic (especially data intense video) onto Wi-Fi, and creating tens of thousands of new hotspots worldwide is a very popular method of shifting those bits. And, as I said in another column, many retailers are poised to start offering free in-store Wi-Fi in 2011.
Wi-Fi is great: I probably transport 70-90% of my bits over Wi-Fi instead of cellular in any given month on my dual mode tablet. That isn't even because of data caps… most months I am nowhere near my 5GB limit.
So why did I pay for the 3G radio, and the extra $35 a month on the data plan?
Because having that cellular connection is a bit like snow tires in Toronto: we only need 'em for 30-60 days, tops. But when we need them - we need them a lot.
Similarly, I can get by without 3G for weeks at a time. But when I am stuck in a cab on the 401 in rush hour traffic? Or next month when I will be on French trains for about 30 hours as part of a multi-city roadshow? The TGV may be faster than VIA…but there's no Wi-Fi.
So, my advice to tablet buyers is: 1) how much of your time will be in hotspot range…and 2) how much is 5-10 hours a month of extra 3G usage worth to you?
Amortized over the life of my tablet, that extra $40 per month for the radio and data plan is some of the smartest money I will ever spend.