Mobile Broadband Services and the Availability of Instant Access to Cyberspace

Abstract

Recent developments and innovations in ICTs (information and communications technologies) and their wide and growing adoption have changed the status of cyberspace vis-à-vis physical space, as well as that of users of information and communications devices. The most important change concerning cyberspace has been its permanent and instant availability to users through broadband services, bringing about its integration with physical space, at least from the perspective of users. I attempt to highlight this change, its significance, and its potential implications. A short review of the literature on cyberspace as a spatial entity is followed by a presentation of the growing adoption of various mobile technologies for users of the Internet, and the rapidly growing mobile broadband traffic, notably of streaming information, coupled with extended mobile Internet uses, mainly for entertainment. These discussions will lead us to the suggestion of several implications of instantly accessed cyberspace by mobile broadband users—access which is available without location and time restrictions.