So much Net, so many wireless ways to get it: A battle is intensifying by which methods will dominate, and the outcome could determine how public surf the Web for years to come.

One method for cable-free navigation — connecting through a cellular phone network — got a boost two weeks ago when a group of companies and the GSM organization, an industry lobby, promised to spend $1 billion to market a new initiative to invent laptop computers wireless-ready

without using Wi-Fi technology.

A day earlier, a competing technology called WiMax — which uses its own tower-based infrastructure to offer broadband wireless World Wide Web connections — received its own vote of confidence when, after billions of dollars in investment, Sprint Nextel began offering the service in Baltimore, the first large WiMax roll-out in the United States.

For now, the two methods are co-existing. But just as Sony’s Blu-ray stamped out […]

Orginal post by dhiram