Mobile Or Portable?

While remaining sceptical about the potential take-up, I also dread the imposition on my personal space of people browsing mobile television via their various electronic devices.

The confluence of technologists creating ever more sophisticated miniature devices, mobile operaters seeking revenue streams to offset their huge bandwidth expenditures and content creators seeking new distribution channels is quite a snowball, but I often wonder if it's rolling down the right path.

Miniaturisation begets portability yet it is assumed that mobility is always the key attribute, particularly in this country where cells are for prisoners and phones have always been called mobiles. The devices are astonishing but the network operaters' focus has always been on urging their partners for more functionality and more content. We've already seen a degree of backlash against the overcomplication of phones, so why should we assume that they're right about this?

Is the killer benefit really the fact that I can use the product on the move? Or is it portability? Do I want the experience/service while I'm on or is it more important to carry the potentail experience with me so that I can use it in different locations (while not necessarily moving)? There is very little marketing of that latter characteristic - perhaps because it doesn't seem quite so sexy and technologically amazing. Well perhaps sexy and technologically amazing isn't the way to go.