How would you like your broadband served?

In my last post I highlighted a service called Autonet Mobile which, from a physical product point-of-view, is literally a box that you plug into your 12 volt power outlet so it is independent of whatever car you're driving.  You get instant internet access but no specially packaged content.  Earlier this week we covered efforts by a few vehicle manufacturers to bring internet access and in some cases premium content into the car.   While I was absorbing the idea of a car as a place to purchase and consume content, a question came to mind about the seemingly embedded nature of their model:  If I were spending money on this right now, would I go for the "roll your own" model embodied by something like Autonet Mobile or would I seek out a vehicle with that capability already installed?

For me personally, I like the idea of integrating broadband directly into the car and certain add-ons like Google Earth imagery in a navigation system seem like natural fits with embedded systems.  I'd pay for that.  Paying for music and video downloads in the car are a different proposition in my mind however, for the same reason that I've never downloaded a single song off of Verizon's "Get It Now" service even though I have a phone that can do it: How do I get those songs out of the car and into my home stereo or my iPod?  What happens when I sell my car?  Put differently, if I pay for music I want to pay for it once and then take it with me.

I'm not trying to read too much into the manufacturers' plans at this point - things are still very early stage.  Selling premium content in the car is certainly convenient and it does have the potential to build up a nice ongoing revenue stream for the manufacturers but I think packaging and portability will be key considerations for subscribers.  Looking at past attempts to build "walled gardens" of content by the early Internet Service Providers such as AOL or more recently by cellular networks (and then at the free-market responses to these initial moves), I have to ask: Does content want to be contained in this way?

I'd say that it doesn't.  Content wants to be portable (but not necessarily free of charge), and if early stage providers don't make it portable a late stage provider inevitably will. 

I'd like for readers to chime in - If you were shopping for a car today and had both embedded and non-embedded aftermarket options for internet access and entertainment that were portable across cars, where would you put your money?