What is the difference between Mobile broadband and Wi-fi?
Question by BlueTuna: What is the difference between Mobile broadband and Wi-fi?
What is the difference between Mobile broadband and Wi-fi?
I understand that Wi-fi is accessed free from certain locations, coffee shops, shopping centers etc. So what is the advantage of mobile broadband?
Best answer:
Answer by Lv2bWet
Mobile broadband uses your phone service providers network and is available anywhere you can get a cell signal. Wi-fi is only available when you are near an access point that was installed for the specific purpose of providing Internet access to the public or to customers of a particular business. McDonalds and Starbucks for example.
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You are confused with the two terms. Mobile Broadband is the net connection provided to your mobile phone. Which in turn can be connected to the computer. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology built in your laptop. in coffee shops there would be a wireless router which sends signal to 50m around. If you are having a laptop within this 50m coverage area you can access the internet.
Wifi refers to an Internet connection over a short distance radio signal put out by a wireless router or access point. This is what you normally find in your home. Other then the cost of having the Cable or DSL Internet brought to your house, you do not pay anything more for it. You produce the signal with your own router. It has a range of about 150 feet. This is used in coffee shops and malls because of its short range. It forces you to come into the shop to use it (and maybe you will buy something).
Mobile Broadband runs on the cell phone network. Anywhere your cell phone works, so will your Internet. And just like you can get into your car and drive across the country and your cell phone will continue to work by switching from tower to tower, so will your computer. You can use it almost anywhere.
However, the bandwidth needed for a computer is many times more than for a cell phone. And so the cell companies charge you a price that matches that usage. People who are unaware have accidentally run up bills in the thousands of dollars in a single month using their mobile connection to run the computer for more than a few minutes.
Check with your cell phone proivide and they can give you information on Mobile Broadband. But at this time the technology is still beyond most user’s price range.
Mobile Broadband is also used for the limited Internet connection you can get on most cell phones. But that is not a connection with the speed or power needed to run a full computer.