One of the most popular topics for discussion lately has been wireless networking. Most of the press, including our own, has talked about the wireless technology known as 802.11, or wi-fi.
The biggest catch to 802.11 wireless networking is that you must be physically located near someone who is providing the service. This could be in your office, the coffee shop, on campus, at the hotel, or at the airport. Chances are that the provider at the mainland airport is not the same as the provider in your local coffee shop. This usually means you have to go through a payment procedure, which can be tedious. Once you've paid, you might need to make technical adjustments to your laptop – not all 802.11 networks work the same, despite what we in the tech industry like to call "standards." Oftentimes, after you've paid, changed your network settings, and finally gotten online, the "final boarding" call is being made.
How do you get around this problem? Consider a wireless data card. Available from most major cell-phone carriers, including Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon, these cards basically provide a wireless connection to your computer – think of it as a cellular modem. Some models also allow you to plug in a handset and use them for voice calls as well or dial into standard analog modems. Once installed, connections are established with a simple point and click. Although this technology has been around for a few years now, its first incarnations were painfully slow. Improvements in the technology currently allow for a maximum throughput of 144kbps, which rivals broadband speeds. Furthermore, improvements in speed are right around the corner - really.
The beauty of this technology is that you can get online anywhere you can make or receive cell phone calls. And let's face it, while people like to complain about the quality of their cell phone reception, coverage is better now than it's ever been. Even the most podunk burgs in America have digital cell phone service.
No credit card payments, no technical settings to change, ubiquitous access, combined billing with your cell-phone service, what's not to like about it?
Well, speed, for one. As you may have noticed, they always stipulate "maximum speed." Even the providers come clean, usually stating "average speeds" are more like 40-70 kbps, or slightly faster than the fastest dial-up access.
Of course, cost is always an issue. Most vendors charge based on the amount of data you transfer. As anyone with a cell phone knows, all vendors have caveats, requirements, commitments and other "features" of their respective plans. Business customers can usually negotiate tailored plans. Suffice it to say that wireless data service can be had for as little as $20 per month (per card), but expect to pay between $30 and $60 per month for average use and $80 or more for heavy use.
To test out this technology, we used Sprint's Airprime PC3200 PCS Connection Card. This is a data-only card. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we were not able to test this card outside of Hawaii. If space permits, we'll look at other vendor's offerings in future columns.
The PC3200 is a PC Type II card, which basically means it can fit into any laptop except very old ones. Although I have to admit this is a little nitpicky, the first thing I noticed was the design of the card. The antenna is fixed to the card; as a result, it is about an inch longer than standard PC cards. I don't like this because I don't like this because I must take the card out of my laptop to put it in my laptop bag, and I cannot secure the card in the pouch in my laptop bag made specifically for PC cards.
We installed the card on a Compaq Evo laptop running Windows XP. The software installation was a little trickier than we thought it would be. Of course, some of this was due to the installation of our VPN client software, which usually requires a technician to perform anyway.
Once installed, the card worked like a charm. Connection (and disconnection) is easily accomplished. Access to the Internet and our own network behaved exactly as expected. We tested this card out across the island of Oahu, including such esoteric locations as Aiea, Wahiawa, Salt Lake, Kaneohe, and of course, our offices on Kapiolani. We even took the card on a road-trip across H-3, from Aiea to Kaneohe. The connection remained solid throughout the trip and we were able to get email and surf the Internet continuously. To our surprise, we even maintained connectivity through the tunnel!
We also took the card to Kauai. Although our testing was limited to Lihue Airport and downtown Lihue, we were able to connect at speeds comparable to what we saw on Oahu.
So what is the deal with speed anyway? As described above, vendors can be somewhat cagey about divulging actual throughput. The Sprint software, for example, does not describe the speed of the connection. Rather than run a myriad of tests that might be subjective anyway, I think it's safe to say that the speed was usually faster than 56k dial-up, but slower than my DSL connection at home (which is rated at 128kb upstream and 768kb downstream). In short, it seems as though Sprint's estimates are in line with our own experience.
What about security? According to Bryan Ito, Sprint's Data Sales Manager, and resident Tech Expert on the Channel 2 morning news, wireless data cards are inherently more secure than 802.11-based networks. Because these cards use the same infrastructure as regular digital (voice) cell service, all the major carriers have a huge interest in ensuring that your data can't be grabbed out of the air. Bryan told me he couldn't give me any more details, otherwise he'd have to kill me.
Of course, there are other technological solutions include wireless handheld devices, such as iPaq, Palm, Treo, Blackberry, and others. I am personally not a fan of these devices, but that's the subject of another column.
Oceanic Time Warner Cable's Community Website
