Word: 56k
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...handheld Internet experience, it isn't all that great. How good will the Web look on a cell phone's tiny screen or even a PDA's slightly larger one? And then there's speed. If you didn't like the World Wide Wait on your home PC's 56K modem, how will you like it on a 19.2K wireless connection, the current PDA maximum...
...Nothing's real until it's perceived," Dorff says. And no Internet movie can be applauded until it's downloaded. At a hefty 166 megabytes, Quantum Project can be smoothly swallowed only by the relatively few PCs with super high-speed broadband connections. The majority of Websters, with 56K dial-up modems, could take all night to access the movie--if their computers didn't crash first. And this one, alas, isn't worth the wait...
...AirPort base station, a little UFO-like device that plugs into your phone line, acts as an Internet radio transmitter. Your iBook, iMac or G4 PowerMac loaded with an AirPort card can be online (or hooked together) anywhere in your home, without wires, at 56k connection speeds (AirPort also supports superspeedy cable modems or DSL). Since normal wireless connections creep along at 9,600 bps, this is nothing short of revolutionary...
Last week I decided to see how well they answered the call. I had planned to upgrade my old 28.8-kbps modem anyway, so I tried Actiontec's $130 56K call-waiting modem first. After a painless setup, I was online and ready for calls. This particular night, unfortunately, there didn't happen to be any. I finally had to call myself, using my roommate's phone line. I was startled when the ringing came from the modem, not the phone. But I could still answer my phone and have a scintillating conversation with myself before hanging up and getting...
...hours a day and don't have to disconnect every time you want to order Chinese food. But that can also be a weakness, because your IP address (the ZIP code of the Internet) doesn't change. Dial-up users like me who are still crawling along at 56K get moved to a different IP address every time we log on. We may be slower, but we're harder to find...