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Wi-Fi will be hitting the road in rentals
By Christopher Elliott
http://news.com.com/Wi-Fi+will+be+hitting+the+road+in+rentals/
2100-7351_3-6146498.html
Story last modified Tue Jan 02 06:06:40 PST 2007
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Try connecting to a high-speed wireless network from a car, and you
are pretty much limited to one method: rigging your laptop computer
with a special modem and subscribing to a costly, and sometimes
temperamental, wireless service.
But Autonet Mobile, a start-up wireless technology company based in
San Francisco, is expected to announce this week that it has
reached an agreement with Avis Rent A Car System to provide a
rolling Wi-Fi hot spot to Avis customers by March. For $10.95 a
day, Avis will issue motorists a notebook-size portable device that
plugs into a car's power supply and delivers a high-speed Internet
connection.
For the moment, the service is intended for business travelers. But
Autonet also sees its service appealing to families traveling with
their children. Its unit is expected to cost $399, about twice as
much as current cellular card technology, plus $49 a month for
service.
A mobile Wi-Fi hot spot that lets laptops and personal digital
assistants link to the Internet without the benefit of wires
represents an important step toward what technology experts call
the "connected car."
"This shows us a glimpse of where we will be in the future," said
Roger Entner, a wireless telecommunications analyst at Ovum, a
consulting firm based in London.
People who use these new Wi-Fi hot spots still must contend with
technological limitations, like bandwidth restrictions, too few
auxiliary power outlets for all passengers who want to be online at
the same time, and battery consumption.
Avis said it planned to make a formal announcement on the
technology within a week but declined to comment for this article.
Sterling Pratz, the president and chief executive of Autonet, said
the device uses the 3G cellular network and will work in all major
metropolitan areas and in about 95 percent of the country.
Pratz said his technology minimized dropped connections but did not
eliminate them, and noted that the In-Car-Router had been modified
to reduce battery consumption. "In our testing, customers have told
us that battery life isn't an issue because people have been able
to plug their devices into the car's power supply," he said.
Questions about the legality of operating a vehicle with a Wi-Fi
hot spot onboard are also likely to be raised, according to
analysts. Thomas Dickerson, the author of "Travel Law" said it
would be "easy to see that a technology like this could change the
way people drive, because this could take people's attention off
the road."
Autonet said the service is for passengers and that Avis will
require renters to agree not to hold it liable for accidents
resulting from irresponsible use.
Entire contents, Copyright © 2007 The New York Times. All rights
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