Get Unwired
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday May 31, 2001
New wireless technology will get you online via your mobile, your laptop or your PDA, no matter where you are. That means games, e-mail, music, videos - even work - on the run. By Sean Nicholls.
What's the best thing about having wireless Internet access? According to Luke Housego, it's "sipping a coffee and killing people anywhere in the Qantas Club lounge." He laughs. "Which is excellent!"
For $40 a month, which includes rental on the wireless card that slots into his notebook, Housego, a 27-year-old from Melbourne, gets to roam around untethered inside any Qantas Club at dozens of the world's airports, blasting opponents in Counter-Strike, the first-person-shooter multiplayer game. How? He's been signed up with local wireless company, SkyNetGlobal, for over a year now.
Unrestricted, caffeine-fuelled carnage wasn't the primary reason for signing up, of course: Housego's also an e-commerce consultant who travels overseas or interstate at least once a fortnight; wireless access means he never needs to search for a phone line when he's on the road. But what he really loves is ripping MP3s, playing games and e-mailing friends with one of his 10 e-mail accounts over a broadband, wireless connection.
"I suppose theoretically 50 per cent of what I use it for is business," Housego says. "But I don't see a distinction between the two.
To me it's a whole lifestyle thing."
This year, the long-awaited wireless revolution is becoming a widespread reality. Cafes, bars and hotels are building wireless networks to attract customers with the promise of broadband connections and the freedom of wireless e-mail and Web surfing.
Products using technologies like Bluetooth are finally making an appearance. And GPRS phones using the next generation wireless Web access technology are hitting the shelves.
True, most of the real-world applications are for business - that's mainly because the technology's new and expensive.
But as more and more people get unwired, there's a shift towards affordable tech and access for the rest of us. And just like Housego, you know what you'll be using it for.
* one by one
You've probably used infra-red to beam information from one handheld (Palm or Visor) to another. That's been useful. The great part is that once you own the device, sending and receiving stuff wirelessly is completely free. But restrictions like the need for line of sight mean it's limited.
Now, using a Bluetooth connection, handheld users can create what's known as piconets - mini private wireless networks running as fast as an impressive one megabit per second. Once Bluetooth devices "recognise" each other, they can swap data instantly over distances up to 10 metres - through clothing, around objects and even through doors and walls.
Palm is already gearing up for this. Before the end of the year, its Bluetooth case will be available in Australia: you'll slip your Palm into the case (which doubles as a protective shell and contains the Bluetooth aerial) and it will be instantly Bluetooth-enabled.
Further down the track, Palm's latest release, the m500 series, will take Bluetooth SD cards - they'll slot into the top of the device for even simpler BT connectivity.
Sony unveiled a Bluetooth "infostick" at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in the US. Similar to its Memory Stick, the infostick will Bluetooth-enable Sony products - everything from digital cameras to computers and even televisions will be swapping data.
Bluetooth is also available on a range of mobiles. Right now it's limited to doing things like updating your contacts on your laptop or PDA. But with a number of Bluetooth-enabled laptops hitting the market, you'll be creating really useful piconets with the processing grunt lacking in phones and PDAs. And it's easy - just click on the name of the device you want to connect to and you're passing info back and forth instantly.
You'll be networking online games, swapping files or even working (if you must) via Bluetooth wherever you are: all you'll need to do is walk into the 10-metre radius, register the presence of other devices, and you're jacked into the network.
More possibilities are emerging every week. For example, Ericsson and Canon recently showed how you could send digital photos via Bluetooth to your mobile phone for e-mailing.
Does all this mean the infra-red standard (IrDA) is dead? Far from it, say its supporters. It'll remain mega-useful for things like swapping info directly with another user, because for simple data transfers, IrDA is easiest. Aim one device at another and fire.
Bluetooth, on the other hand, takes time to make the initial connection (up to 20 seconds). And if there's more than one device in the room, it takes time to find them all.
* at home
Apple led the way in wireless home networking - it released its Airport system ($699) a couple of years ago, and it's still going strong.
Now there are a number of other home networking products competing for the same business. Cisco Systems Aironet Home Base Station ($911) and 3Com's Home Wireless Gateway ($900) are two examples. They all use what's fast becoming known as the "WiFi" (Wireless Fidelity) standard to create simple Local Area Networks.
It works like this: plug the networking "hub" into your existing ISP connection (phone line/cable) and any WiFi-enabled equipment in the house is instantly connected to the world. All you need is a wireless PC card inside each piece of hardware - each card generally costs extra, somewhere between $200 and $500, depending on the level of encryption it offers.
Once it's set up, you can use your Internet-connected notebook out on the deck, in the garden, in the bathroom or even down the street. Or you could just play network games in the back yard without messy cables. Theoretically, it'll remain connected as long
as you're within 100 metres of the base station. (Careful. WiFi hackers can get in pretty easily, too, if the network isn't secure.) WiFi desktops can be connected for wireless printing (as long as your printer takes a WiFi card or USB connection).
The great thing about the WiFi standard is interoperability - once you've given your laptop the right information (i.e. the IP address of each new network) you can wander from network to network using the same equipment, regardless of which company made the hub. So the laptop or PDA you're using for wireless Web access at home also works while you're travelling (if you're signed up with a WiFi service like SkyNetGlobal, for example, you can hook in wirelessly at airports and hotels worldwide).
At the moment you buy the kit, then connect to an ISP. In the future there should be a more streamlined service: larger ISPs will bundle the equipment with a plan, the same way you buy mobile phones today.
Networking of everyday household functions is going wireless as well. While the HomeRF standard, still popular in the US, hasn't made inroads locally, other systems like X10, which connects devices via your home's existing electrical wiring, promise to offer wireless control via a series of WiFi hubs around the home in the near future.
* out and about
One of the fastest growing wireless technologies is the Global Positioning System (GPS), which allows you to pinpoint your position anywhere on the planet to within about 20 metres, using a network of satellites.
The cost of handsets and GPS chips has plummeted in recent years - there's now a huge range of tiny handheld devices available.
When you combine this with wireless Web technology, you could find yourself pulling up pages of information about any street corner you happen to find yourself standing on, using your GPS-enabled PDA.
If Ericsson has its way, there'll also be a Bluetooth information point on every street corner - and in between. Advertisers or local governments might embed BLIP (Bluetooth Local Infotainment Point) terminals in billboards or stand-alone kiosks - you'd point your Bluetooth device at them to receive local information.
But that's still what they call "point-to-point" networking. The big news in wireless Net access is packet-switched networks where your humble device accesses a base station which connects you to Anywhere. And all packet-switched solutions are cheaper than connections like Internet-over-GSM, where you have to pay for the time you're connected.
One example is the Mobitex network. It runs on the 400-megahertz radio frequency used by FedEx and the Victorian Metropolitan Fire and Emergency Services Board. Now it's being used by Melbourne-based company dotWAP to provide wireless Web connectivity to handhelds via its NEO1 wireless "cradle". The NEO1 works with the Palm V and Vx series and IBM's Workpad handheld and provides "always on" connectivity - you're instantly alerted when e-mail arrives, for example.
It's a great idea, but relatively expensive compared to home Internet: the NEO costs $499, plus $99 per month for network access.
Another packet-switched network is the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Australia's first consumer GPRS network rolled out last month and we're finally starting to see GPRS phones like Nokia's 6310 and Ericsson's R520 on the market. It's still an expensive option: current rates for Telstra's GPRS access are 22 cents flagfall plus 2.2 cents per kilobyte for the the first 200 kilobytes, and 1.1 cents thereafter.
What will they offer? For a start, the GPRS "always on" packet-switched data feature means you can stay connected to the Net without spending a small fortune - you only pay for the data you send and receive. When an e-mail is sent to you, it appears on the screen of your phone or PDA instantly.
Once you combine the different technologies, it's pretty powerful stuff.
GPRS phones can already connect via IrDA to laptops for full-colour Web browsing. Soon, with Bluetooth, you'll be able to open your laptop and be online - as long as your phone's within 10 metres of the machine, of course.
Just like GPS, the big driver of this technology will be location-based services - say, being able to access a map of the area you're in.
Phones are only the first step. Before long, the bulk of wireless data could move onto the cellular (mobile phone) network. GSM wireless modems are already hitting the market, along with laptops with built-in GSM wireless connectivity: just slot your SIM card into the device and dial up a Web connection. By some estimates, we'll all be buying PCs and PDAs with GPRS modems built into them within three years.
Laptops such as Panasonic's Tough Book are expected to have GPRS wireless built in by the end of this year, while the first GPRS modem cards are expected to go on sale as early as next year.
Beyond GPRS is 3G - the third generation of networks including UMTS and EDGE systems - which will bring in a whole raft of new portable devices capable of streaming video and full-colour Web browsing.
A recent Ericsson announcement paints a possible future for globally networked wireless gaming over 3G phones and handheld devices. In conjunction with Siemens and Motorola, the company is building a software platform for wireless game developers which would allow people from different countries to play multiplayer games against one another over different networks and platforms on different models of mobile phones.
"When electricity was invented, people were thinking about it only in terms of light," says Gael Derven, senior manager, wireless Internet solutions at Nortel Networks.
"Nobody thought about electricity in terms of computers. To a certain extent the wireless Internet will make people think about how data is used differently. It will open doors."
Apple AirPort
Apple was the first to come out with a WiFi solution two years ago and it's still going strong. AirPort supports up to 10 users at an estimated 11 megabits per second. And with its flying-saucer design, the AirPort hub still looks cooler than any of its competitors. Of course, you don't have to have a Mac to connect to it: just hardware with a compatible WiFi card. $699
Anoto Pen
Ericsson and Motorola have demonstrated dedicated Bluetooth-enabled pens based on the Anoto (www.anoto.com) concept - "digital paper" printed with a pattern that tracks the movements of a special pen, encodes them into "writing" and transmits the data via Bluetooth to another device - while pen specialists Mont Blanc and Pilot have signed deals to do the same.
Handspring Visor Phone
Yep, it's another Springboard module, but one with some pretty cool features. While a smartphone turns your mobile phone into a PDA, this device turns your Visor PDA into a mobile phone. Supports cool, smartphone-style apps like call conferencing and, via your ISP, e-mail on the fly. $TBA
Competing technologies
Infrared (IrDA)
Currently used for everything from TV remote controls to operating garage doors.
At first glance, IrDA seems at risk of being wiped out by newer technologies such as Bluetooth. This is mainly because IrDA requires line-of-sight (or at least devices aligned to within 30 degrees of each other) to work.
However, for direct data swapping between devices, IrDA does have a couple of distinct advantages over its younger rival: it's instant, and it has a possible bitrate of between four and 16 megabits per second (depending on the technology you're using), compared to Bluetooth's slower one megabit per second.
Bluetooth
The buzzword of the wireless revolution. Bluetooth transfers data between devices over the 2.4-gigahertz radio frequency at a rate of one megabit per second. The big advantage of Bluetooth is that devices will "find" one another anywhere within a 10-metre radius. Unlike IrDA, two devices - say a mobile phone and a laptop - can form a fast wireless connection without actually being able to "see" each other.
WiFi (802.11b)
WiFi has emerged as the dominant standard for creating wireless Local Area Networks. Like Bluetooth, WiFi operates over the 2.4-gigahertz radio frequency, but at a much faster bit rate (up to 11 megabits per second).
The Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) now has dozens of member corporations developing for the WiFi standard, meaning WiFi-enabled devices are network portable - using WiFi you can stroll from network to network, as long as you've set up the correct IP specifications on your device for each network.
In the near future, speeds of up to 54 megabits per second are being promised via a subset of the 802.11 standard, 802.11a, which will run on the 5-gigahertz spectrum.
GPRS/UMTS
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) works over the regular GSM and CDMA cellular networks. You're constantly connected to the Net, but only charged for data sent or received.
GPRS is often termed 2.5G, the step before UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System) or 3G, which promises to massively increase data transfer rates for mobile connectivity - leading to wireless streaming video and audio over handhelds, among other advances.
Global Positioning System
GPS is a worldwide wireless network that allows owners of hand-held GPS receivers to pinpoint their location anywhere on the planet to within about 20 metres.
It works by bouncing information back and forth between the device and any three of 24 dedicated communications satellites constantly orbiting the Earth.
GPS was originally designed for use by the US military in the '70s. The first public version was, by design, far less accurate than the military version - it could only pinpoint to within 100 metres. Last year former US President Bill Clinton descrambled the signal to give the public the same accuracy enjoyed by the military.
Health risks
If we're already worried about what too much mobile phone use is doing to our soft tissue, surely the forecast increase in wireless use is cause for concern.
Not necessarily, says Dr Andrew Wood, a senior lecturer in biophysics at Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology. There's a fair bit of published research about the effects of the 2.4-gigahertz frequency used by WiFi and Bluetooth: it's very close to the microwave frequency.
"The absorption level at which you start getting heating of tissue is well documented, and that's well above what you'd experience from a PC card," Dr Wood suggests.
He points out that as with mobile phones, the risk also depends on a person's proximity to the handset.
"As with any antenna, the radiation absorbed falls off very rapidly with distance," he says.
"If you've got a PC with an antenna that's some distance from the body it could improve things, assuming there is indeed a proven biological effect, which is uncertain at present."
That's half the problem; Dr Peter French, the principal scientific officer at the Centre for Immunology at Sydney's St Vincent's Hospital, believes that since the research is inconclusive, we can't safely rule out possible health risks.
"We don't know with any certainty what the threshhold level is for possible biological health effects from exposure to radio waves," he says.
"So while that remains unknown, any increase in our immediate proximity to these sorts of radio frequencies poses a certain unknown risk."
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
