Permanet, Nearlynet, and Wireless Data
http://www.shirky.com/writings/permanet.html

For most of the past year, on many US airlines, those phones inserted into 
the middle seat have borne a label reading "Service Disconnected." Those 
labels tell a simple story -- people don't like to make $40 phone calls. 
They tell a more complicated one as well, about the economics of 
connectivity and about two competing visions for access to our various 
networks. One of these visions is the one everyone wants -- ubiquitous and 
convenient -- and the other vision is the one we get -- spotty and cobbled 
together. 
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Call the first network "perma-net," a world where connectivity is like 
air, where anyone can send or receive data anytime anywhere. Call the 
second network "nearly-net", an archipelago of connectivity in an 
ocean of disconnection. Everyone wants permanet -- the providers want to 
provide it, the customers want to use it, and every few years, someone 
announces that they are going to build some version of it. The lesson of 
in-flight phones is that nearlynet is better aligned with the 
technological, economic, and social forces that help networks actually get 
built. The most illustrative failure of permanet is the airphone. The most 
spectacular was Iridium. The most expensive will be 3G.