The rise of personal 'Mi-Fi' hotspots

Relief for those struggling to connect on the road

Industry analysis by expert Joanie Wexler, plus links to the day's wireless news headlines

Travelers often have more than one mobile device that they'd like to connect to the Internet. They might have both a smartphone and a laptop, for example, and could be traveling with spouses or colleagues carrying similar devices. Such situations are driving a new wireless paradigm referred to as "Mi-Fi."

Translation: you take a teensy Wi-Fi access point (AP) with an embedded 3G router in it on the road to create a personal Wi-Fi hot spot. You can connect multiple local devices containing embedded Wi-Fi connections to this third device. Then, you use the 3G backhaul in the portable AP for a shared connection to the Internet or your corporate intranet.

Case in point: Recently, we heard tell of tiny, portable devices coming from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, made by Novatel, that let you connect all your various computing and communications devices across a 3G cellular backhaul in this manner. The 2-ounce AP/3G router costs about $150 and comes packaged with 3G data service plans from the respective carriers.

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Travelers often have more than one mobile device that they'd like to connect to the Internet. They might have both a smartphone and a laptop, for example, and could be traveling with spouses or colleagues carrying similar devices. Such situations are driving a new wireless paradigm referred to as "Mi-Fi."

Translation: you take a teensy Wi-Fi access point (AP) with an embedded 3G router in it on the road to create a personal Wi-Fi hot spot. You can connect multiple local devices containing embedded Wi-Fi connections to this third device. Then, you use the 3G backhaul in the portable AP for a shared connection to the Internet or your corporate intranet.

Case in point: Recently, we heard tell of tiny, portable devices coming from Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel, made by Novatel, that let you connect all your various computing and communications devices across a 3G cellular backhaul in this manner. The 2-ounce AP/3G router costs about $150 and comes packaged with 3G data service plans from the respective carriers.

Another emerging option might make this scenario even simpler by embedding the Wi-Fi/3G "hub" directly into your smartphone. Wi-Fi chipmaker Atheros is looking to turn smartphones into mobile hot spots with its recently announced AR6002 wireless chip. In other words, your smartphone suddenly becomes not only a Wi-Fi client, but an access point, too.

NTT DoCoMo in Japan has picked up the chip for use in an NEC N-06A phone it provides with wireless data services. It remains to be seen whether this will catch on with U.S. carriers, though Atheros director of strategic marketing Joseph Bousaba says Atheros is "seeing interest from service providers, both domestic and global."

There are merits to the carry-along hot spot scenario, regardless of form factor. Aruba Networks has enabled this capability for enterprise users for some time with its Remote Access Point, which links you to your corporate VPN using your hotel or home cable or DSL Internet connection.

But there are also some outstanding questions, such as both the practicality and legality of sharing 3G cellular bandwidth through a router-like device. More on that in another newsletter.

Read more about wireless & mobile in Network World's Wireless & Mobile section.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.