I attended InnoTech San Antonio today.  I haven’t been to a technology conference for a couple of years, and I wanted to see how much I was missing.  I felt pretty comfortable, but I’d thought I might see more of my former military colleagues (either military or civilian).  I ran into one.  I saw lots of local business attendees and conversed with one or two.  I attended a couple of social media seminars.  I knew most of what was presented, but I was happy to meet one of the presenters.

In addition to seminars, the exhibits are usually the best, and I enjoyed those conversations.  For so many years, I had to focus my attention on technology applications I could use for the Air Force.  Today, I could focus on anything that might be useful for me personally.  I attended as the owner of Mercury Ranch, so I had the opportunity to explain what we’re planning to do with that.  I did find some companies that might be helpful for things we need to do with it — assuming we can decide how we want to implement our plans.

I was pretty excited about Sprint’s 4G/3G wireless hot spot, but, sadly, when I got home and checked coverage, Sprint is only available in Roaming mode in our Central Texas location.  We could get great coverage here in San Antonio, which is part of my plan.  Verizon claims to have full 3G coverage in our Central Texas location, and they have a beautiful MiFi wireless hotspot.  I also confirmed ATT is not aware of an impending wireless hot spot release, so when the contract is up in September, I’ll be moving my cellular data modem business to a company that offers a wireless hotspot for up to five simultaneous connections.  At this time, it looks like that company will be Verizon.

If you primarily operate near interstate corridors and need a wireless hot spot, check out Sprint’s 4G/3G unit — it costs the same as the straight 3G modems.  An added bonus is unlimited 4G connect time, and 3G is the usual 5G per month.  The modem is fully configurable.  It’s about the size of a large square drink coaster.

It was a pretty good day.