Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Wireless service has plethora of options

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 01 Feb 2003 13:45:35 -0500

Saturday, February 01, 2003, 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Wireless service has plethora of options

I've been wary of wireless, especially when it's just air between me and the Internet. How
can radio waves reliably and securely
carry information from my computer to the Net? I don't want ragged performance because the
weather's bad, and I don't want
anybody intercepting my radio signal to steal information.

But some of you are excited about wireless. One reader, Tim Bueneman, pointed out the
proliferation of Wi-Fi (wireless
fidelity) Internet access points at Starbucks coffee shops and suggested I take a laptop
there and try the service and then share
my experience with those of you who may wish to cruise the Net while sipping java out of
the office.

Well, I am curious, and it seems like a painless way to try Wi-Fi, so I arranged to borrow
a wireless card and service to go
with it.

Netgear sends its MA401 wireless PC card ($60, www.netgear.com), which is about the size
of a thick playing card and slides
into a slot on the side of my laptop. The card enables the computer to wirelessly connect
to a Wi-Fi access point (within 200
feet), which connects the laptop to the Internet.

For this project, I'm sampling the T-Mobile HotSpot wireless service, which offers
broadband-speed access at around 2,000
locations nationwide, mainly in Starbucks cafes.

A T-Mobile subscription for Wi-Fi usage ranges from $50 per month to metered pay-as-you-go
plans. For more information,
go to www.t-mobile.com/hotspot/services_plans.htm.

When everything is here and installed, my older daughter and I head for Starbucks. I pay
for our coffee while she logs on and,
by the time I'm back, she's all over the Net. The service works well, and it's faster than
my DSL connection at home. We visit
our favorite sites, send some e-mails, and I plan on coming back later to work.

After this success, I'm ready to try another wireless approach. Sprint PCS, for instance,
offers a wireless card for laptops, but
rather than using a Wi-Fi connection that's dependent on a nearby access point, Sprint
uses its cellphone network. That means
I can cruise the Net from any place in the Sprint PCS national network. It's like making a
cellphone call, only I'm calling up data
on my laptop.

I've been using Sprint's service to access the Net from Starbucks, my home and other
places. It's definitely faster than pokey
dial-up connections, but not yet at Wi-Fi's broadband speeds.

OK, now imagine this scenario: supposing you want broadband service at home, but neither
DSL nor cable is available in your
area. If cellphone service is, you could get Sprint's (or another cellphone provider's)
wireless card with service and connect at
moderate speeds now, with faster speeds coming.

That would give you faster access from home and elsewhere, at least while using a laptop.

A Sprint wireless card costs $250, and the service starts at $40 for 20 megabytes of data,
which is estimated to be enough to
browse about 3,000 Web pages and send or receive about 200 e-mails.

Other cellphone providers offer similar services, including T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless,
AT&T Wireless, Nextel and Cingular
Wireless.

I haven't forgotten the security issue, though it turns out not to be too scary. Here's
how it was explained to me by Andy
Willett, senior vice president of NetMotion Wireless in Seattle:

Cellphone carriers' networks tend to be a bit more secure (than Wi-Fi) because they
encrypt data in transit from the laptop to
the Internet. There the data is decrypted and remains only as secure as the Web site that
receives it.

In comparison, data traveling across Wi-Fi networks generally is not encrypted, and is
therefore less safe.

Also, Wi-Fi networks operate in unlicensed public air space with less bandwidth, which
makes it a little easier for an intruder to
find the signal.

Web sites that are secured by encryption (those displaying the padlock icon) make it safe
to send credit-card and other
information from your browser to the site. However, unencrypted e-mails and documents can
be intercepted by a hacker.

I guess that would scare me if my e-mails contained vital secrets or financial
information. As it is, any intruder would be pretty
bored with my data. Still, a software firewall and virus protection are essential
deterrents to any malicious activity on the laptop.

For me, the most significant downside of Wi-Fi and wider-area access is they bring an
additional bill to pay on top of cellphone
service and regular Internet service.

T-Mobile plans to combine its cellphone, Wi-Fi and wide-area Net services later this year
and, if the trio is reasonably priced,
that could be a good deal.

Right now, if I regularly used a laptop away from my home office and could afford the
extra expense, I'd pick wider-area
service so I could connect from almost anywhere.

From: STC

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