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Publication Date: August 30, 1996

Keeping in Touch: Part 1 - Going Unplugged

[Back to Intro] [Part 2] [Part 3]

The wireless communications sector is one of the fastest growing in the communications industry. According to the GIGA Information Group, the number of wireless data users in the United States grew from 190,000 in 1992 to 1.3 million in 1995. The same survey predicts that close to 10 million people will be using wireless networks to transmit and receive data by the year 2000.

Ira Brodsky, a wireless communications consultant and president of Datacomm Research Co. in Wilmette, Ill., sees two sectors involved in wireless communications. The first involves field service technicians who are now using pay phones or two-way voice radios. Converting them to mobile data "is simply a more efficient and reliable way to conduct the communications that would be going on in any case," he says. The second group is composed of business people who need better access to company information, a segment of the market that Brodsky says has seen less development but that also offers greater opportunity for the wireless industry. "The real question is, how can I use whatever mobile platform I prefer and still get the connectivity I need while on the road."

For the company looking to make the transition from wired to wireless, one obvious choice is the move to wireless PCMCIA modems and cellular phones. The modems, which along with a connecting cable cost between $250 and $375, allow the laptop user unplugged access to his or her data network, whether it be America Online or an internal LAN.

Wireless modems and accessories are readily available and relatively easy to use. But there are still some kinks in the technology. Wireless data transmission is neither as reliable nor as fast as land-line data transmission. Dependent on predominantly analog cellular phone connections, unplugged data transmissions can be disturbed or interrupted, especially in a moving vehicle. At present, it is almost impossible to send or receive data faster than 14.4 baud on a wireless connection. In many cases, the rate is as slow as 9600. "This is a painful way to surf the net," admits Diane LaGattuta, data salesperson at Cellular One in Westwood, Mass. A subsidiary of Southwestern Bell, Cellular One offers a modem pool service where wireless data calls are connected with a wireless host that corrects errors in the signal and then passes it on to a land-line modem to complete the connection.

The technology in wireless cellular modems and the air or land-line networks that handle them will undoubtedly improve, and many telecommunications companies are busy perfecting the technologies involved. But buyers must still beware. "For now, air time and connect capacities are not set up to handle megabytes of data," says John Fitzpatrick, president of Integra Technology International, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that specializes in custom development on Windows NT and Microsoft BackOffice architecture. "But telephone companies and paging carriers are beginning to understand data transmission. And I believe that this method of communication will be efficient and cost-effective in the very near future."

[Back to Intro] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Ira Brodsky is the author of Wireless: The Revolution in Personal Telecommunications (Artech House) and a featured speaker at DCI events.