Internet Away from Home

People are increasingly “connected.” Your house likely has a phone connected to the wall, a TV connected to the wall, and a computer connected to the wall. All those items work well when you’re at home. When you aren’t at home, the mobile Internet gives you access to a wide range of information, applications, and services to help you with your daily lifestyle needs:

- Browse the Web. You can browse Web sites to shop, bank, search for the nearest pharmacy, or read the latest weather forecast.

- Stay in touch. Send e-mail, chat with friends, or upload new pictures to your family blog.

- Go shopping. If you forget your coupons or loyalty-rewards cards at home, just take out your mobile phone and connect to the mobile Internet, and you can retrieve them.

- Find sports scores. If you missed the latest results of the football game or your favorite Big Brother episode, check it out live from your mobile phone.

The best way to connect to most of these types of services is to visit your wireless carrier’s mobile Internet site or portal; the most requested and common mobile Internet services are all there for you. If the mobile Internet sites offered by your wireless carrier don’t suit your needs, you can go directly to the made-for-mobile Internet site of your favorite online store, bank, blog, or other type of service. Browsing made-for-mobile Internet sites is similar to browsing at home, but mobile Internet sites and services are designed to give you what you need when you need it on your mobile phone. Here’s a quick tour of the various types of content and services offered on some popular made-for-mobile sites:

- Keep up with the latest news stories, sports scores, weather reports, and stock prices. From CNN to ESPN and from The Weather Channel to Yahoo! Finance, all these mainstream Internet services now have made-for-mobile Internet sites and offerings.

- See the latest music video of your favorite band and then download the song to your mobile phone. Check out Verizon Wireless V Cast or the T-Mobile T-Zone service

- Check out banking services. If you need to check your balance, transfer funds, or find the nearest ATM, a few excellent made-for-mobile Internet sites have you covered: Bank of America, Citibank, Wachovia , and Wells Fargo. Most major regional banks and national banks now have mobile Internet sites and services to help consumers in the same way as their Internet Web sites let them bank from home.

- Make travel plans. Almost all airlines , hotels, and car rental Internet sites have their own madefor- mobile Internet sites and services. You can even find out whether your flight is on time, book your seat, and obtain your boarding pass — all from your mobile phone.

- Find fun, new menu ideas. If you need a good recipe, it’s as simple as locating your mobile Web browser, searching for the recipe at a madefor- mobile service on a recipe site , sending the ingredient list to your mobile phone, and buying the ingredients at the supermarket. You can probably even have the supermarket send you a made-for-mobile discount coupon. Then you save both time and money.

If you have experienced what the Internet can do for you at home, the mobile Internet will definitely knock your socks off.