

Ask HN: Why don't more laptops have 3G/4G? - m0hit

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

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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...](http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/14/photos-of-a-prototype-macbook-pro-
with-integrated-3g-cellular-data/)

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.

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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.

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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.

