A long time ago I remember reading about the plan for the then nascent cellular networks in the U.S. The article was a synopsis of an academic article outlining a vision for a cell phone network. The principle was that small radio stations would be attached to phone or power poles at about 250m intervals. Each base station would serve a radius of about 500m, with the overlap between adjacent staions providing the necessary redundancy in case of malfunction. The base stations would initially be expensive and limited to city 'business' districts and university campuses but would soon become cheap and ubiquitous in well populated urban areas. Rural areas would be served by the now familiar broadcast type masts.
For whatever reason, that version of infrastructure was never implemented by the telecoms. But those ideas are now a reality with the advent of affordable 3G 'femtocells' which boost local 3G signals for phones, and MiFi devices that provide you with localised WiFi broadband service. Any competent government which was serious about a 'smart' economy would provide universal WiFi service for free (at least in conurbations of any size), either directly or by contracting a telecoms provider to do so. It won't happen here anytime soon.
What does this have to do with the iPad? Unless you have WiFi or 3G access the device is essentially crippled and largely useless, except as a large expensive calendar and mp3 player. If you don't have WiFi or 3G access in the place where you will primarily use the device then don't buy one.
Now, as you can buy the iPad with or without 3G which should you go for? I'll deal with this matter in another post.
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