Internet Anywhere

The wired world is losing its wires. New wireless Internet technologies and products are making instant access to e-mail and the Internet as close as the PDA in your pocket or the cell phone in your purse.

New hardware products--ranging from wireless modems and data-ready phones to smarter pagers--make it easier than ever to access critical information whether you are near a phone line or not. And information providers including Microsoft and Yahoo are formatting their content for these new wireless devices, so you can get stock quotes, weather reports, and other info nuggets, as well as e-mail, wherever you are. Our hands-on evaluation of some recent products and services indicates wireless Internet access works surprisingly well.

That's not to say this brave new untethered world works perfectly. Finding a service that works wherever you roam isn't easy and probably won't be for some time. You can't buy off-the-shelf wireless hardware at random and expect it to work with any service provider. The tiny screens and keyboards on these new devices can turn reading and writing e-mail into unpleasant chores. Access speeds are poky, too--19.2 kbps is the norm. And though prices for that access have fallen, you can expect to pay a premium for a cable-free lifestyle.

Smart Choices

The wireless world may seem complicated. But in it, as in the familiar wired world you're so accustomed to, you need three basic things to go online: a modem or some other hardware device, a service provider that will connect that hardware to the Internet, and content to look at once you're connected.

The latest wireless modems are sleek, cheap, and easy to use. Take, for example, Novatel's Merlin Type II PC Card and Sierra Wireless's AirCard 300. Both are type II PC Cards with small, built-in antennas--meaning that they'll work with most notebooks and with many Windows CE handhelds. In addition, they're a breeze to operate: The $549 AirCard 300 connects as soon as you boot up your Windows PC; the $279 Merlin comes with a little app that you must click to initiate contact. Their 19.2-kbps speed does make for some pretty leisurely Web browsing--a high-end Web site page with several graphic elements can take a minute or two to load--but their waiting times are tolerable, and they're perfectly adequate for e-mail.

Smooth Operator

If you own a digital cellular phone, you have another option: AirTouch Cellular, Sprint, and GTE offer cables for connecting your digital phone to your notebook PC's serial port. The resulting connections are slower--typically, 14.4 kbps--than those managed by the Novatel and Sierra modems.

If having to carry around extra cables bugs you, we have good news: A new technology dubbed Bluetooth will soon make them superfluous. Bluetooth is similar to infrared, but it can connect devices over a wider area. For example, you'll be able to dial up your ISP on a cell phone and then beam the connection to your laptop. And because Bluetooth-enabled devices won't have to be in sight of each other to connect, you'll be free to print out your e-mail on a printer in a different room. Bluetooth-enabled products aren't yet available. But you can expect them to begin arriving early next year from many vendors in the 850-member Bluetooth Special Interest Group--which includes cell phone giants Ericsson and Nokia, as well as notebook notables IBM and Toshiba (for the full list see the Bluetooth Web site).