I was thrilled when Apple announced its Airport Wi-Fi hardware. Like many others, I envisioned walking down the street with my iBook constantly connected to the Internet. We all soon found out how difficult that was, at least without buying a cup of coffee. A small culture was born from people driving through neighborhoods looking for Open (Without a password) wireless access points. This scavenger hunt was not the wireless network we had envisioned. That dream connectivity came many years after Wi-Fi, and it is called EVDO.

EVDO is short for Evolution-Date Optimized, which like all too many acronyms used these days tells you nothing about the service. This is unfortunate, because Verizon Wireless has made EVDO technology extremely accessible to all levels of computer user. Verizon has made true wireless broadband available. What Verizon offers with its EVDO service is computer access to the high-speed data network that their phones use for streaming video content and text messaging. The most astonishing thing is that it is not dialup speed, but DSL speeds of up to 2 Mbps. Actual speeds vary considerably as you drive down the Interstate, but you will stay connected. Your signal is handed off from one cell tower to the next. That