Can you really hear me...everywhere?

This will be brief, because... well, frankly, because I'm on vacation, and I have a date with a fishing rod, a cooler full of beer and a Great Lake full of whatever is unlucky enough to take my bait. Furthermore, although I'm not a big fan of the first-person experiential column as a form of commentary--as any of my editorial colleagues on the Telephony staff will surely second--I feel the need to make a couple of observations about the ubiquity of wireless and the distinctions between industry perception and consumer reality.

Bear in mind that it's just two weeks after Supercomm, which, while not a traditionally wireless-focused show, certainly carried the torch for the overall dominance and competence and permanence of communications technology. I traveled from there to New York City, where it seems the only place you can't get a wireless signal is on the subway. So I was in a very wireless-friendly, connectivity-centric frame of mind. I was in touch, without fail.

Then I packed up the minivan and traveled to the Lake Huron shore in northeastern Michigan with laptop, BlackBerry and cell phone in tow for the first week of an oxymoronic and spousally reviled "working vacation." It is here where I lost all touch with civilization; it is here where the wireless industry's secrets became clear.

To be fair to my wireless service provider, I've just spent about 90 minutes on the (landline) phone with a very helpful service technician trying to decipher why my phone says I'm on network but I can only roam--if I can get a strong enough signal to connect at all, which I can only get by standing on the shore or driving a half-mile toward town. Don't get me wrong: I fully expected and absolutely wanted to do my business from the beach. But even the beach lacks consistency when it comes to wireless coverage. Another service provider rep actually told me that the nationwide promise of my plan only applies to areas where the carrier has coverage. That's a new definition of "nationwide" to me.

The point, if there is one, is this: As Supercomm strongly demonstrated, fiber-to-the-prem has amazing potential, WiMAX and other last-mile pavers hold the technological promise to extend high-speed data networks to the masses, and mobility rules the voice world and has an opportunity to also transform the way we use data. But there are table stakes to this game, everywhere you want and need to play. If you haven't met them, it's time to go back and make sure everything's sound before moving--or even talking about moving--forward.

That's all for now. After I unplug the in-laws' rotary-dial phone and transmit this column back to Chicago over a 28.8 kb/s dial-up connection, I'm going to wet a line and see if I can catch dinner.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com. I'll answer you when I reconnect.