3G from TATA Docomo - 3G Life - I can't wait!

Ok. 3G is officially here.

Am I travelling that fast? I mean by default every creature on earth is accustomed to 1G.  Pilots go through 9G when they take some sharp turns with their after burners on fire. F1 drivers go through 5G. Imagine telling a girl, she weighs 5 times her normal weight? No wonder very few women take up Formula one racing!

Cutting back to the 3G revolution hitting India. This is not about how fast you are travelling, but how quickly data can be transferred to and from your handheld device.

        I am a geek, an internet addict and a photographer. This means I like to read a lot about tech devices, participate in discussions, get high on social networking, feel good when Google announces something new, drool over apple webcasts, watch videos on TED, photo blog, etc etc. To me, the internet is a way of life. I can’t remember the last time I watched TV! I watch IPL on Youtube and news on ibnlive.com. Twitter & Facebook help me have conversations with friends, with brands. Facebook has taken over my life so much that when my friend excitedly calls to announce that he got a promotion, my default reaction is “I Like”.

        I used to use a dial up connection at home for a long time. This was functional but it limited my internet use in terms of time and money. However it opened up the World Wide Web to me.  The flip side was that there was only so much I could do online. Most of my interaction with the web was text based and one way.

I got a broad band connection at home around 6 years back. Boy! Did it open up the internet for me. Suddenly I was photo blogging, sharing photos on Flickr, downloading movies on torrents, napster became my online music source, Web 2.0 opened up for me…Wikis, Orkut, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube…the net became “always on” & “unlimited” & “affordable”. Interestingly, I quietly switched from desktop to laptop in this phase.

        Now, with 3G coming in, I can’t help but feel déjà-vu. 3G is going to open up yet another new world to me, albeit on the mobile phone. My mobile phone is already smart. Smarter than me perhaps. 3G will only give it a nitro boost. Here again, I can see the switch from laptop to phone happening. 3G will enable huge amounts of data transfer very quickly…Phones will start having bigger flash cards (like hard disks). Battery technology will see the next big leap as phones suck in more & more power quickly. 

How will 3G Life from Tata Docomo change my life?

1. “Phone” will by default mean “Smart phone” to me. I can’t even fathom having a “sms and call only” phone anymore

2. Social networking will soon become “phone only” apps for me. I have already stopped using twitter and Facebook from my laptop. With video capability coming in, it would only be logical for me to use my smart phone  to network 

3. Content will become richer.  If a picture can speak a thousand words, imagine what a video can do! When I had a dial up I wud only send text based emails. When I got broadband I started sharing richer content in the form of pics  and now with 3G I would now share even richer content in the form of HD videos. 

4. Telephone conversations will never be the same. See and talk will become the default mode of conversation. Imagine your ailing grandmother in a hospital, able to see u and talk to you whilst u are several thousand miles away. 

5. Maps! I depend on Google Maps to go just about anywhere these days. Yes! It has made me dumber coz I don’t have to remember any landmarks. But with 3G, maps would become seamless. No more waiting for maps to download. Maps can get richer and more detailed with live streaming data and street views. Yum! 

6. Phone will now be the new TV. Imagine u are on the bus getting home from work and Sachin is on 399. Normally you wud be getting hyper, pressing the refresh button on CricInfo or listening to the radio. With 3G you can simply catch the action live online wherever u are, using nothing more than your phone. 

7. My library travels with me. More and more of my data will get stored in the cloud.  I see myself storing all my contacts, my calendar entries, notes, music library, videos, eBooks, etc on the cloud so that I can access them wherever I am from whatever device I have ..be it a laptop, iPad, phone, desktop ,etc. 

8. Mobile banking will become seamless and more widespread. It took a long time for people to get comfortable making transactions online. Now the next step would be to make payments from the mobile. Why carry a credit card / debit card when you can pay through your cell?

9.Online gaming. Being a gaming fan, I would happily use my phone to play network games. Maybe connect via Bluetooth onto my Play station or NFS on my laptop. No more games against the computer.

10. Phone as a modem will become default. Why buy a USB dongle when u can use your phone to get the same / if not better internet speeds at the same rates.

Well 4G is now around the corner. Till then latch on to your seat belt. Coz its actually you who is hurtling forward this time around!

3G from TATA DOCOMO - http://www.3glife.com/