The Globe and Mail, Friday, December 17, 1999
Wireless advances cut cords that bind data transmission
People need more and more speed to access multimedia applications being developed.
By Jim Lyon
James Morehead, a marketing manager with Nortel Networks Corp., recently had a 45-minute airport stopover in Chicago. Knowing many E-mail messages would be waiting on his company computer -- and not relishing the prospect of responding to them late at night from his hotel in San Diego -- he linked his Nokia 6185 cellphone by cable to his laptop and did the job while waiting for his plane.
For him, it was a perfect use of what otherwise would have been dead time. The data-transmission time was slow -- about half the speed a PC user normally gets over a regular phone line -- but, he says, "It's certainly fast enough when there are no other options.
"Many mobile professionals get 50-plus E-mails a day, and it's nice to clear them whenever you have dead time. It's just not fun staying up till two in the morning to read E-mails."
Wireless transmission of data has been around for some time -- for applications such as meter reading and remote telemetry (monitoring oil and gas pipelines, for example). However, it is only within the past year, with the introduction of more sophisticated digital-data-transmission technology, that costs have tumbled to a level where mobile data transmission can be an everyday reality for many people.
A year from now, Mr. Morehead won't need the cable; low-powered wireless technology will link his laptop to his cellphone. Transmission times will be far quicker. He'll be able to download E-mail attachments (possible with today's technology, but of limited utility). Should his job demand instant access to data, he'll be able to maintain a permanent Internet link via his laptop and cellphone. Even if he doesn't opt for a permanent link, connections will take only seconds compared with the minute or two Internet users routinely have to wait when dialing in now.
Advances during the past few years in both speed and reliability of wireless communications have been remarkable, says Bruce Sinclair, president of Toronto-based WaveRider Communications Inc.,which calls itself the World's Wireless Web Company. It specializes in technologies that provide low-cost, high-speed fixed wireless access to the Internet (as opposed to land links such as phone lines, fibre optics or cable).
Mr. Sinclair says: "The number of subscribers on the Internet in North America is estimated to grow from 75 million to 150 million in the next year. That's phenomenal growth. At the same time, people are needing more and more speed to be able to access all the exciting applications -- multimedia applications with voice and moving video. The telecommunications industry cannot keep up with it.
"We realized that wireless access to the Internet really hadn't started to make an impact, and so we developed products to deliver high speed access.
"In many areas, especially outside North America, people don't even have access to telephone and cable technologies. We estimate that of the millions of new Internet users in North America over the next couple of years, 10 per cent to 20 per cent of them won't have access to the high-speed telecommunications services that we have, say, in downtown Vancouver or Toronto."
WaveRider has developed two product lines so far, and is selling wireless modems to school boards and small to medium-sized businesses. Typically, these devices have a maximum range of 16 kilometres.
Says Mr. Sinclair: "In Salmon Arm, B.C., where our company got started, school students are able to access the Internet, and teachers and administrators are able to share information on a network that they wouldn't otherwise have been able to put in place."
WaveRider also is beginning to market its devices to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that will offer them to their customers.
In the new year, the company will be delivering wireless Internet connections (a network and modem) that will cost ISPs about $500 per subscriber. These costs would be recovered, typically, from subscribers in monthly charges. Mr. Sinclair says this is much below the infrastructure costs incurred by cable companies and will fill in gaps where fixed infrastructure isn't available.
The market for its products, WaveRider believes, will be 70 per cent international.
"We already have $15-million in orders with telecommunication companies in the Caribbean, in Latin America and some in China -- places which do not have good telecommunications infrastructure." |
