HN Explorer

Ask HN: Why don't more laptops have 3G/4G?

4 points by m0hit ↗ HN
I'm quite tired of carrying dongles, and even phone based hotspots. Chrome books have cellular data plans, but they aren't good enough yet for programming and design.

I wonder why MacBook Air's don't have a 3G or 4G card inbuilt ala the iPad where I can choose to get a cellular connection when I want.

Wondering if someone has some insight on why this is not in the interest of companies, or hard to do, or some other reason.

4 comments

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Toph
Apple had a prototype where they experimented on this idea with the older Macbook Pro (pre-unibody) so this was quite a few years back. See: http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-ma...

It was posted on eBay and eventually pulled because of Apple. You can google for more info. As to why it never became a thing? I suspect (read: guessing) that it has to do with a few things:

1. Network speeds have trouble supporting tablets and smartphones as it is

2. Not everyone wants this

3. City wide initiatives to bring wifi have been ongoing

None of those are really valid enough to excuse why no one else have done it. But then again, its not like no one has. Some netbooks and some models of laptops out there do have built in network cards (I know some sony models do). Just not sure there is a huge market demand to cost ratio for this.

I for one wish there was such an option as well, one that can also translate to a hotspot but I'd imagine we're going to wait a bit longer before that happens.

brewerhimself
Verizon offers a little device called a "Jetpack" that is essentially a battery-powered router that is eligible for 4G service from Verizon. You simply carry it with you and it acts as a hotspot for up to 5 devices, including laptops.

The only downside is that the largest data plan offers only 10gb of bandwith for $80/mn.

dangrossman
Aside from Apple, every laptop maker is competing on price. 4G radios add $50 or more to the cost of the device. The only way they would include one is with incentives from a network that would include some offer with the laptop. None of the networks are offering laptop manufacturers such incentive right now, so they don't build them.

Why are cell companies not offering incentives to produce laptops with cell radios? Because they are just barely keeping up with current demand. Only major metro areas have 4G coverage, and each tower can only handle a couple dozen active data connections before saturating its uplink. Older 3G towers that haven't been upgraded can still have only 50MBPS links, which means they're very limited in how many clients they can serve at once. Retrofitting the old equipment and building new towers takes time; they have to manage demand so that it doesn't outstrip supply, which is why we've seen lower data caps and higher prices as LTE is rolled out, instead of higher caps and lower prices.

yummysoup
I got a 3G radio with my last Thinkpad (1.5 years ago) and have barely used it. It seemed like a great feature, but because WiFi is almost ubiquitous (and when not, it's easy enough to create a hotspot on my phone), I haven't been willing to commit the extra $10/month and get an extra SIM to share my phone's data plan on another device.