A wireless world

I’m at home right now, and I’m looking out the window and it’s snowing like crazy.
RCR Wireless News is based in Denver, so we occasionally have weather-related troubles. Our most memorable weather disaster happened a few years ago when it snowed three feet in the city. Most of the RCR staff was in sunny New Orleans at a CTIA show when the snow hit, and we had to fly to Albuquerque and then rent some four-wheel drive SUVs to get back to our office. That adventure can only be described as “super fun.”
Anyway, the forecast today is for up to two feet of snow, so most of the RCR staff is safely ensconced in their homes. (How wonderful it is to wear sweatpants to work.)
But what is the point of all this nonsense? The point is that I’ve gotten most of my work done this morning via wireless.
I have a weather alert set up on my cell phone so that I get a text message every day with the forecast. This morning my forecast was: “Snow. Don’t even bother going to work, you probably won’t get there anyway.” (That’s not a verbatim quote, but it’s close enough.)
Shortly after getting my weather alert, my boss called me (on my cell phone) to tell me not to go to the office. I then quickly called my colleague (on her cell phone) to tell her not to bother coming to pick me up because neither of us needed to go anywhere anyway. Unfortunately for her, she was already half way to my house. Sucker.
Gearing up for a day in sweats, I grabbed my laptop and fired up my Wi-Fi connection. Perched comfortably at the kitchen table, I began cleaning out my inbox.
The interesting part of all this is I could have accomplished these tasks from just about anywhere. Not only has the wireless industry untied us from our home phones, allowing us to hurtle down the Interstate while discussing dinner plans, it has also completely untethered us from our workstations. With Wi-Fi available at libraries, coffee shops, airports and elsewhere, I can use my laptop and cell phone from a growing number of places.
Now what’s really interesting is that, with HSDPA, EVDO Rev. A or WiMAX, I could potentially get voice and high-speed data access from just about anywhere in the city-even while hurtling down the Interstate.
Slowly but surely, wireless is changing how we work, just like the Internet did a decade ago. Maybe I can wear sweats to work more often.