Mike has a totally on-point post on his blog about choosing WiFi over cellular while abroad at 3GSM. His opinions reflect exactly what I experience while abroad - ubiquitous cellular service or not, the outrageous costs of roaming data scare the pants off of me.

Since a lot of the phones I’ve had over the years have done random network things in the background, I’ve played it safe and never even turned my cellular connection on after arriving. It’s WiFi or nothing. This means, if I don’t have a WiFi-capable handset at the time, I tether myself to my laptop for everything. If I do have a handset with WiFi, it’s actually kind of fun to sniff open networks while abroad and steal a little bandwidth here and there. The SSID’s alone are fun to check out. This, however, doesn’t do wonders for battery life.

In these situations, Skype, of course, is invaluable. If you even think of using Skype over an international roaming data connection, you might as well just hand over your credit card to a stranger and tell them to go nuts. But here in the states, Skype is fighting a battle for domestic use over cellular as well.

This quote from CTIA had me steaming:

“Skype’s self-interested filing contains glaring legal flaws and a complete disregard for the vast consumer benefits provided by the competitive marketplace,” said Steve Largent, chief executive of the CTIA in a prepared statement. “Skype’s ‘recommendations’ will freeze the innovation and choice hundreds of millions of consumers enjoy today. The call for imposing monopoly era Carterfone rules to today’s vibrant market is unmistakably the wrong number,”

Wow. Opening networks will freeze innovation and choice? I can’t see the logic here. If the only thing it does is force carriers to bolster their data infrastructure to handle the increased use, we have some great innovation right there.

But all-in-all I’m optimistic. As data becomes more popular, and more necessary, attitudes and policies will change - and these little fights are roadmarks along the path.