I love the insane rate of innovation online. The application independent nature of the Internet Protocol allows any hacker with an itch to scratch it. With broadband at work, home, school and free Wi-Fi increasingly available everywhere in between, our favorite applications are never very far whenever we stop moving and boot up our laptops or pull out our Wi-Fi enabled smart phones. But what if we want to keep moving? For true mobility, as opposed to nomadic access, the only currently available option is the cellular network. With 3G finally being deployed in North America, not only can we access all the applications we know and love (assuming you can afford the data rates!), but a whole new category of apps, Location Based Services (LBS) becomes available as well… at least in theory. LBS: we’ve been hearing about them for a while now, but where are they? Actually, one segment of the LBS market, machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, seems to be growing nicely. The low bit rates of GPRS and 1xRTT were fine for M2M applications, which typically require very little bandwidth. Fleet management, delinquency management and telemetry all seem to be doing fine, but where are the cool consumer apps the Mobile Internet promised? Most readers of this blog will probably agree when I say that the Cellcos are to blame. Most readers of this blog will have a harder time agreeing with me when I say that hackers also need to share some of the blame. (to be continued…)