Obama, Bellaria, Broadband and iPad Worries

It appears these days that if a new Apple device doesn’t excite you or repel you, it worries you. From the latest news reports the iPad is no different. Phil Bellaria, the “director of scenario planning” for the OBI (Omnibus Broadband Initiative), a group put in place by President Obama, is one of the concerned people. (His title on its own could be easily translated as “worrier.”) His concern is that all of these new Apple devices capable of 3G could cause a major jam in the country’s network services.

He is quoted as saying: “With the iPad pointing to even greater demand for mobile broadband on the horizon, we must ensure that network congestion doesn’t choke off a service consumers clearly find so appealing…”

"The Doom of America's Cellular Networks?"

Now forgive me for being a little critical, but I’m guessing of all the people who will purchase an iPad, at least 50-60 percent will have iPhones already. A majority of iPad users will use them at home or perhaps at the office, and both of these places will normally have Wi-Fi connections. Realistically then, he thinks the minority of people who will actually spend a minimum of $629 on the 3G version will all be online at the same time and out in an area with no wireless? I doubt it very much. Even if they did have the device out of range from a wireless source, would they not rather use their cell phones to access the internet?

Personally I feel a little like he’s hit the “PANIC” button a little prematurely, I don’t predict there will be a great enough increase in 3G use as a result of Jobs’ giant iPod to create a catastrophe of the ’96 AOL magnitude. (This was when the internet practically shut down for months after AOL introduced an unlimited data package.) It is appearing very far fetched — but hey, stranger things have happened.

via ElectricPig