Wired magazine, you say? What — those stodgy old geezers? Why, just their name alone dates them. Small wonder the magazine's founders hocked it to New York-based publishing giant Condé Nast a while back. Any real technology pundit would cringe at the thought of being associated with a "futurist" rag that still thinks everything ought to have a cable hanging off the back of it.
Check the headlines, fellas; un-wired is the word on the street, and it's a trend that's steadily gaining momentum.
Says who? Michael Dell, for one. His company, top-ranked online PC vendor Dell Computing, has traditionally stuck to what it knows best — selling Intel-based desktop and notebook PCs direct to consumers.
But the CEO was so enamored of the two-way pager he keeps clipped to his belt that he just couldn't resist jumping into the market himself. Dell's recently announced Blackberry two-way paging device marks the first time the company has aggressively marketed a non-PC product.
And how about Cisco? Cisco Systems is a company generally known for their routers and other traditional networking hardware. Their products keep most of the businesses on the Internet "wired" — but that doesn't mean they don't keep their ear to the ground.
Recent announcements of wireless networking technologies from Cisco should serve as a warning to competitors: Cisco has seen the future, and its aim is now set squarely on being the wireless networking leader as well.
Palm Computing is still the undisputed heavyweight among PDA vendors, with a reported 70 percent market share. Not one to rest on its laurels, however, Palm scooped its competitors yet again this year, with the release of the Palm VII.
Though remarkably like the rest of the Palm product line in most respects, the Palm VII has the notable distinction of incorporating wireless networking capabilities. With it, users get updated stock quotes, news stories, and other information delivered directly to the handheld device — an ability no other PDA product can match.
And it wasn't enough for Apple Computer to release a laptop with the low price tag and hard-candy coloring of its iMac desktop machines. Another selling point for the iBook was its being the first product to incorporate Apple's new AirPort wireless networking technology. v AirPort is capable of linking machines at speeds equivalent to traditional 10Base-T networks, only without the cables. Other PC vendors quickly followed suit with similar products — Dell among them, using equipment by Aironet, a company that was recently acquired by Cisco.
For years, cable television was the envy of Americans tired of twiddling with rabbit ears or rotating a motorized rooftop antenna. Ironically, the high tech industry seems to be moving in the opposite direction — but with good reason. Besides creating markets for new products like the Palm VII, wireless technologies enable communication in cases where it would be too inconvenient, too costly or just plain impossible to employ traditional networking systems.
Cisco, for instance, seeks to deploy "fixed" wireless stations for customers who want fast Internet connectivity, but are out of the reach of DSL service or other traditional land-based hookups. Their devices, which resemble satellite TV dishes, could also be used in metropolitan areas where telephone networks are heavily congested and the telcos are unable to install new communications feeds in a timely manner.
Similarly, wireless networking products such as Apple's AirPort and the Aironet used by Dell aren't intended to let you wander around your office building with a laptop in one hand — though you could. But they do offer benefits for stationary computers in environments where it's difficult to predict or manage networking needs.
They might be especially valuable to the home user who lacks the resources to wire-up a traditional network, for instance, or for a business that is growing rapidly or that commonly employs a fluctuating number of freelancers, for whom permanent workstations are not needed.
The Palm VII, on the other hand, is an example of a device that uses wireless technology to let users remain mobile. Palm Computing observed that in today's computing market, a desktop PC without an Internet connection is almost unthinkable.
They reasoned that the only way to bring a similar capability to a handheld device like the Palm PDA would be through wireless technology, and they set out to deploy their own wireless data network in major cities throughout the U.S. Sprint recently unveiled a similar technology for digital mobile phones using their PCS cellular network, dubbing the service the "Wireless Web."
The reason why all this sudden growth in wireless data products is happening now can largely be attributed to that old saw, "because we can." Recently developed technologies combined with the adoption of new standards have made possible widespread deployment of wireless applications that previously would have been infeasible.
Sprint's Wireless Web, for example, would not have been possible using yesterday's cellular phones. Traditional analog or digital cellular networks are engineered for voice communication, and lack the ability to effectively transmit the packets of data necessary for a Web-like application. Only Sprint's decision to adopt the more modern PCS technology for its mobile network made possible a wider range of uses for its phones.
Airport networking is based upon research conducted by Lucent Technologies, the company created by AT&T's spinoff of Bell Labs. But in a refreshing change of pace for Apple, the system is not completely proprietary.
Not only are Lucent, Cisco, and several other vendors offering similar products, but the systems are largely compatible with one another, thanks to industry-wide standardization efforts. Your Apple Airport network card will let you communicate with a Lucent WaveLAN wireless hub, and vice versa, making your decision less about which company's product you should adopt, but rather just how soon you'll be ready to ditch cumbersome wiring altogether.
Other players have not been so late to embrace the promise of wireless technology. Here in the Bay Area, as well as a few other key markets, Los Gatos-based Metricom has been providing inexpensive cable-free Internet connections for business or private users since the late 1980s.
For the cost of the hardware plus a modest, flat-rate monthly service charge, Metricom's Ricochet network lets you send email, surf the Web or download MP3s from most any office, café, or even a park bench. The current network offers access speeds roughly comparable to a 28.8Kbps modem, but a new network offering speeds of up to 128Kbps is planned for rollout by early 2001.
But whether an independent venture like Metricom can keep its footing in the wireless data market, now that both the telecommunications giants and large networking companies like Cisco and 3Com have taken an active interest, remains to be seen.
While PCS networks can't currently match the Ricochet product's transfer speeds, among the large cellular companies the race is on to provide the "killer app" for mobile business users: a low-cost, connect-anywhere Internet feed. And Ricochet itself is too slow to compete in the LAN market, where AirPort-style products represent a revolutionary leap in engineering.
One thing is for certain: We're only just on the cusp of the new Un-Wired Age, which stands poised to replace the Wired Age in the near future. Though no current product is a catchall solution for every need, sooner or later you will say goodbye to the cords and cables of today's networking systems. Just when the change will happen, however, and what form the pivotal technology will take remains — if you'll forgive me — up in the air.
