3G Hotspot and WiFi Ahead Of Their Time

I was shown the picture of this desktop on LinkedIn and it reminded me of a funny incident during my stint at dialup internet helpdesk about two decades ago. 

I can still remember the conversation till today, as it came from a user who probably predicted the coming of 3G and Wifi ahead of its time, now that I think about it.

The caller called the hotline to complain that he wasn't getting any internet. From the first question, we found out that the caller didn't had a dialup modem to connect to his computer. 

When we told him he required a dialup modem, his reply was "Your telco advertised that I get free internet when I buy this pager. 

"I placed this pager on the desktop, so why no Internet?" 

For those born after the pager generation, pagers used to look like that above. When you had to reach somebody from the landline, you would dial the pager and enter the number to call back. The person carrying this pager would receive the number and call from the nearest landline. 

If you think of what the user complained back then, he was probably thinking that the pager was a hotspot device with 3G connection and connecting the internet from the pager to the desktop via Wifi. 

This was 20 years ago when the thought of Wifi and 3G mobile internet were still being conceptualized.