Take the internet along for the ride
NY Times
By:
John R Quain
While riding in the back of a Cadillac Escalade
recently, I made a video call to a friend (Hey, guess
where Im calling from!). Then I checked my ranking
in an online football pool. And then I sent e-mail
messages to my editors, explaining my tardiness in
filing this article. I was still testing mobile
high-speed
internet access to show how to get the Web on wheels.
And while I discovered that the mobile route to the
information superhighway has some potholes and
detours, surfing the Web as a passenger in a car may
someday become second nature.
Certainly BlackBerry and iPhone adherents can get
basic online access while perched in the passenger
seat. However, smartphones like the BlackBerry were
designed to deal primarily with e-mail, and the iPhone
uses a slow connection to the internet, so you cant
make video calls with it or quickly jump from
Web site to Web site. To do that you need a high-speed
wireless data service, like those offered by AT&T,
Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel.
For my Web rides, I used a laptop and a wireless data
PC card that slide into the side of a laptop to get
high-speed internet access. The three major cell
phone carriers offer unlimited monthly subscriptions
for about $60, including a compatible PC card with a
two-year contract. All three also offer similar
maximum data speeds speeds of about 600 to 1,400
kilobits per second (Kbps) to download and speeds of
about 500 to 800 Kbps to upload. Its not quite
as snappy as some broadband cable or DSL services, but
its close.
For example, I was able to make video phone calls
using a Webcam and the Skype Internet calling software
on Verizon and AT&T. However, the picture quality
didnt match that of a broadband cable connection,
delivering a grainier image and choppier motion.
Nevertheless, the experience of jumping from news to
Sports
sites or even playing NFL video clips was usually
comparable to that of a home high-speed Internet
connection. And all three wireless services are
certainly
reliable enough to shuffle through e-mail so that you
can make excuses to the boss.
The trouble comes as it does with any traditional
cellular phone service when you travel out of range
or nearly out of range of the carriers cell towers.
Diminishing signal bars on a wireless data connection
mean a slower connection. So along portions of Lake
Shore Drive in Chicago, the signal I received
varied significantly, which sometimes made internet
access slow down to pedestrian speeds. Furthermore,
even though the major carriers claim to be able
to reach hundreds of millions of consumers, rural
areas with spotty cell coverage receive spotty
wireless internet service. An intermittent signal in
Vermont,
for example, proved too tardy and inconsistent to
bother with.
AT&T uses a wireless data standard called HSPA (for
High Speed Packet Access), while Verizon and Sprint
use EV-DO Rev. A (for Evolution-Data Optimized
Revision
A). However, faster wireless access is expected next
year when Sprint and its partner Clearwire begin to
sell a mobile WiMax service called Xohm.
Mobile WiMax is a wireless standard promoted by
Companies
like Intel, Motorola and Samsung, and has been
endorsed by the International Telecommunication Union,
which means more
Companies
may support it. WiMax promises speeds that would be
three to five times as fast as AT&T and Verizon and
some cable and DSL services. Sprint expects average
download speeds of two to three megabits per second
(Mbps), but peak speeds could be 10 Mbps or more when
reception is clear.
So Xohm promises to make video calls from the car a
snap, as well as eliminating hiccups when watching
streaming video from sites like YouTube or listening
to streaming music from services like Rhapsody.
Companies
supporting the new standard want to not only put
WiMax connections in laptop computers and smartphones,
but also in Global Positioning System units. WiMax
navigation devices could not only get traffic
information more quickly for improved accuracy, but
also let drivers tap into live traffic Webcams to see
what backups really look like.
Sprint and Clearwire expect to introduce Xohm to a
handful of cities, including Washington and Chicago,
in April next year and hope to reach 100 million
potential customers by the end of 2008. Meanwhile, the
other cell phone carriers said they were exploring
competing high-speed alternatives. AT&T, for
example, is planning to someday move to a technology
called LTE, or Long-Term Evolution, that could deliver
speeds 10 times as fast as WiMax.
But no matter what high-speed wireless technology
becomes the next standard, it is questionable whether
net access on the highway will be adopted with the
same zeal as cell phones.
NY Times / John R Quain
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