Users awash in emerging wireless options

The days of simply giving traveling employees a cell phone for talking and a laptop for dial-up data are long gone, replaced by a complex landscape of overlapping choices. There are decisions to be made regarding devices, carrier contracts, performance and reach - with all the major technologies offering moving targets to boot.

In addition to Wi-Fi wireless LANs and cellular data, both of which keep getting faster, there are two major emerging options that use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Most highly hyped is mobile WiMAX, but another system called FLASH-OFDM (Fast Low-latency Access with Seamless Handoff) has already been deployed and is now owned by cellular giant Qualcomm.

The Wi-Fi-vs.-cellular question poses speed against coverage. Public Wi-Fi hot spots can offer several megabits per second shared among users in a coffee shop or airport. The still-emerging IEEE 802.11n specification is intended to boost that speed to about 100M bit/sec and improve range, and it may eventually show up in hot spots. But despite the chain operations of companies such as T-Mobile and the aggregation of sites by service providers such as iPass, hot spot users still frequently have to set up and pay for new accounts.

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The days of simply giving traveling employees a cell phone for talking and a laptop for dial-up data are long gone, replaced by a complex landscape of overlapping choices. There are decisions to be made regarding devices, carrier contracts, performance and reach - with all the major technologies offering moving targets to boot.

In addition to Wi-Fi wireless LANs and cellular data, both of which keep getting faster, there are two major emerging options that use orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM). Most highly hyped is mobile WiMAX, but another system called FLASH-OFDM (Fast Low-latency Access with Seamless Handoff) has already been deployed and is now owned by cellular giant Qualcomm.

The Wi-Fi-vs.-cellular question poses speed against coverage. Public Wi-Fi hot spots can offer several megabits per second shared among users in a coffee shop or airport. The still-emerging IEEE 802.11n specification is intended to boost that speed to about 100M bit/sec and improve range, and it may eventually show up in hot spots. But despite the chain operations of companies such as T-Mobile and the aggregation of sites by service providers such as iPass, hot spot users still frequently have to set up and pay for new accounts.

Also third-generation (3G) cellular data services offer coverage across a metropolitan area - though they can vary from one location to the next - and the number of metropolitan areas covered is growing. For example, Verizon Wireless now offers the high-speed Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) flavor of its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) service in 84 U.S. markets, and Sprint offers it in 75 markets, according to the companies. Sprint plans to gradually upgrade its network to the next version of EV-DO, called Revision A, in late 2006 and early 2007. Verizon also will use Revision A but hasn't said when. The new version is expected to significantly boost upstream speed.

On the other side of the 3G fence is Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), a step on the migration path of GSM operators such as Cingular Wireless. It is now available in six markets but will reach 15 to 20 by year's end, according to Cingular spokesman Ritch Blasi. Those rollouts will use a new version of the technology, called High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), that will match the average speed of EV-DO as quoted by Sprint and Verizon. (All 3G networks have "burst" speeds that may be available in locations with low congestion.)

Blasi gave two selling points for UMTS over EV-DO: It carries both voice and data, so users can talk while using data on the same device, and it's used more widely outside the U.S. Cingular plans to offer in the first half of next year a dual-band PC Card UMTS modem to reach both overseas and U.S. networks, Blasi says.

3G is now being integrated into mass-production notebook PCs: Dell made a splash last month by announcing plans with Verizon for EV-DO notebooks and with Cingular for HSDPA-equipped systems. It is also emerging in a growing number of handheld devices. The Microsoft Windows Mobile-based Treo phone that Palm announced last month will use Verizon's EV-DO network.