Can Slow-and-Steady Win the Wireless Race?

(Digression: I once checked into a hotel in Reno, Nevada, that advertised “high-speed Internet.” I found only a standard phone jack. After calling around, I finally found someone who explained that my room was on a “special” floor that offered data jacks. This person further explained that “dedicated” phone jacks yield better data rates than those nasty in-the-side-of-the-phone-base ones. Data rates such as 48Kbps, I asked? He didn’t know. That’s a true story, and it didn’t happen back in the 20th century, but just last year. This is why I tend to surround “high-speed Internet” with quotation marks. But I’ll knock off the quotes for the rest of the article.)

Anyway, I discovered that the hotel had wireless high-speed Internet. I’ve loitered in hotel lobbies waiting for Microsoft Outlook to download one email message, without an attachment, for about 40 minutes on a wireless high-speed Internet connection, so I tend to consider the phrase “wireless high-speed Internet” something of an oxymoron. The hotel across the street also offered wireless Internet, so I gave up and checked into the original hotel. . . .