June 10th, 2009
BlackBerry's reduce broadband outage downtime
I got in from the Orange Street Music Club yesterday evening, a famous jazz and live venue in here in my city, only to discover my broadband had cut out. After the crap day that I had, this just topped it off.
(Only on the way back from campus, there were some telecoms engineers working on the cabling on the pavement. I wasn’t looking where I was going, got my leg wrapped around some fibre optic cable and fell flat on my face and into oncoming traffic. Instead of seeing my life flash before my eyes, I felt my soul slipping down the broadband stream into low-budget porn.)
So my plans for watching low-budget porn go way out the window because there’s no broadband. Instead I decide to watch television. There’s no broadband so I can’t download anything from BBC iPlayer or stream anything, nor can I check the digital timetable to see what’s on the “normal” television. I decide to write [this] article about the lack of Internet, because I’ve never done that before… but there’s no connection to the web to get the dashboard up.
But all is not lost. Even though I’m cut off from the outside world, I have a beautiful little BlackBerry which keeps me going. Yes, they’re a bit expensive for the average student but as a next-generation technology, it’s far beyond “just” a phone.
I have Twitter over the mobile network, a Facebook application, Windows Live Messenger, a full office suite and a web browser which is one of the best on the mobile market. I won’t carry on shamelessly and selfishly promoting my own phone, but it’s important to remember two things.
One, as a generation, we are too dependent on the web. Do people ever just go out and randomly hook up with someone and get laid? Or is it such a necessity to update your status at every given opportunity to broadcast to the world how truly lonely you are?
Two, when without the freeway like speeds of the broadband experience, get a BlackBerry. It truly is the perfect device for when you’re away the desk. Sod the Palm Pre; I won’t be embroiling myself in a live broadcast e-punch-up.
Zack Whittaker, the youngest in the ZDNet network, is a British student at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he studies BA (Hons) Criminology and Social Policy. His insight into the next-generation is unique and first-hand, sharing his knowledge of the here and now but more so what's next and how to get there.
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