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Something like this needs to be made commercial at a reasonable price-point :-(. It will help bridge the technology gap between aged grand-parents who aren't comfortable with modern tech and up-to-date grand-kids who live in far-flung places and are more comfortable with the newer methods of communication. Also connecting to a network must be made transparent somehow in these devices like Kindle's WhisperNet.

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I would say the single biggest issue right now is the cost of an LTE modem and service. Cursory research shows a fully integrated modem is on the order of $44 at small quantities. Obviously cell phone manufactures get that number way down but they also manufacture at very high quantities.

It looks like service is on the order of $0.50 per month per device, plus $0.33 per MB. That's not prohibitive, but it would mean the device would likely have to have a subscription of at least $19 a month.

Is LTE necessary? It seems that 3G or even 2G might suffice, and might be cheaper?

I would assume those networks will be shut down sooner rather than later in most places. I think 2G already is gone in the US.

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