Coming Soon: A 3G Wireless Station in Every Room?

I wrote previously about the South-by-Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, and how it seemed like a national coming-out party for location-based social networks like FourSquare and GoWalla. To make sure all those check-in happy hipsters could get five bars on their mobile devices, AT&T (T) hauled in a boatload of gear, freed up additional spectrum and used other technology tricks to provide a bodacious wireless data network that had even AT&T uber-hater M.G. Siegler, a TechCrunch columnist, cheering.

Ironically, this display by AT&T was probably the last time a major cell company will have to go to such expensive lengths to provide sufficient data coverage. That's because SXSW 2010 also marks the time wireless data came down off the cell tower and into your living room or office.