Time for the wireless, networked laptop

There's no point having a thin, light, ultra-portable notebook computer if it's tethered to a desk by a modem cord. Ben King considers the main ways to make a laptop genuinely wireless.

Until networking and the internet came along, a PC really wasn't much more than a glorified typewriter. Add a modem and it becomes a mailbox, a library and an entertainment centre all in one.

Laptops are still waiting for a similar revolution. They're getting lighter, smaller and battery life is getting longer. Laptop design is improving, too, from the fruit-coloured iBooks to Intel's leather-bound concept models. But the feature they're crying out for is an easy, always-on web connection.

An always-connected laptop will do all the things a web PC can. But it could also take on some of the features of a PDA, like diary and contact management. It could even have a built-in pager.

In the past, laptops have connected to the web using docking stations or LAN cards - clumsy in the office and useless on the road. And anyone who has travelled with a dial-up modem and a bag full of different plugs for the world's many and various phone sockets will know that they are about as much use for keeping in touch as a basket of carrier pigeons.

Using wireless connections for laptops is as sensible as using wireless technology for mobile phones.

Mobile phone operators are among those who realise this, and they've been offering wireless internet connections to laptop users for a while. Most high-end phones can be used as modems, plugged into the side of a laptop with a cable or linked up through an infra-red port.

Special modems using various mobile networks are also available. These can either work over the existing 2G mobile network (GSM), which offers only 9.6Kbps, or on enhanced versions such as GPRS, which offers an always-on connection and higher speeds.

Either way, airtime on mobile networks is expensive. When third generation mobile networks come on stream - the earliest are scheduled for the end of this year - they may offer higher speeds but are unlikely to be much cheaper.

However, a large percentage of laptop usage takes place in a small number of locations such as offices, hotels or airport lounges - hotspots, as they are known.

Wireless LANs using the popular 802.11b standard are increasingly ousting the docking station in offices and public wireless hotspots are becoming common. They're popular in Scandinavia and the US, and BT has announced a plan to build 400 wireless LAN hotspots by July 2003 in the UK.

802.11b offers a reasonably fast link (11Mbps), there are no expensive spectrum licences to pay for and the equipment is relatively inexpensive, so it can be offered to a customer cheaply.

Other short-range technologies like Bluetooth also have a potential role in making PCs genuinely wireless but they are not so much for connecting the PC to the internet as for connecting it to various peripherals such as printers, MP3 players or phones.

802.11b is also likely to be replaced in due course, most likely by a similar standard called 802.11a which offers 54Mbps connections in a slightly different part of the spectrum.

As it stands, all of these solutions are quite expensive compared to wireline networks - and a hassle to use. As Don MacDonald, Intel worldwide director Mobile Platforms Marketing, said: "Today you almost have to be a PhD. It's damn difficult to use wireless."

In time, better software should improve the user experience. But if 802.11a and b become widely accepted standards there's no need to have them at all on a PCMCIA card or a USB - it would be much easier to build them into the computer.

Ultimately, Intel wants to build chips with everything built onto to the same wafer as the processor, from GPRS - or, eventually, 3G - mobile telecoms chips for access in remote locations, to 802.11b for offices, airports and coffee shops, to Bluetooth or ultra wideband (UWB) for much shorter distances.

With these built into the chip, the cost of a device should come down to the level where it becomes only marginally more expensive to ship a wireless-enabled laptop. Power consumption of the wireless components will also be lower if they're stuck on the same wafer.

Long term, connectivity should be seamless. It should be possible, for example, to roam from a wireline network to UWB to 802.11a or b, then onto a 3G network and onto a GPRS network. All without interrupting that game of Quake.

In networking terms, this will probably be the hardest thing to accomplish. Intel is already developing software which undertakes some of the task on the computer side but getting the various network operators to make it possible will be a bigger headache, and take several years to deliver.

As a first step, though, Macdonald sees Intel priming the market by shipping laptops with 802.11b capability installed, to increase the size of the potential market.

He added: "If we encourage the world's notebook manufacturers to put wireless in their computers it creates tens of millions of potential customers who these carriers can go and target."

Deployment of 802.11b and GPRS or 3G is the biggest headache at the moment. But even when these networks are in place, it will take a massive technological business effort to enable a user to roam seamlessly between all of them and receive a single bill of a sensible size. Security is also a concern.

With Intel, the wireless laptop revolution has a powerful champion. And Intel needs it to take off. The quest for ever-faster processors won't be enough to keep punters buying but the promise of better wireless connectivity could keep Intel's cash till ringing for years to come.