Word: wi-fi
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...Europe and the Pacific Rim--grass-roots wireless Internet service that is as accessible as any radio signal, and often as free--and figure out a way to make you pay for it. In the long run, Cometa aims to be nothing less than the Windows of business Wi-Fi...
...Wi-Fi stands for wireless fidelity, and the name is apt. Most who try it love it faithfully. No wonder: they are browsing the Internet on laptops untethered by cables, and at the high speed of 11 megabits a second--fast enough to let you watch a movie while you're downloading it. "I wasn't much of a surfer before," says Donna Gallagher, 37, an office manager and Wi-Fi fan in Wilmington, N.C. "Now I'm totally addicted...
...alone. In 2002, 20% of business laptops were Wi-Fi enabled. By 2005, analysts believe, that number will be more like 95%. Apple started things rolling in 1999 with its Wi-Fi system, known as AirPort, and in January unveiled a speedier upgrade called AirPort Extreme. Last month, in a bid to boost demand for laptops (and Intel processor chips), Intel released Centrino, a mobile technology that features a new microchip and a built-in Wi-Fi receiver...
Whether anyone will make serious money off the technology is an open question. Wi-Fi is shaping up to be one of those destructive technologies--like the Internet--that deliver huge benefits to users while slashing profit margins for existing businesses (think of what the Net did to travel agencies). It's easy to see how a blazing-fast connection on a big-screen laptop--anytime, anywhere--might pose a threat to firms like Sprint and Verizon, which are investing billions of dollars to deliver fancy 3G data services over your cell phone or laptop at slower rates and steeper...
...hurdle is the technology's simplicity, and the ease with which anyone can provide it. Ignore the geeks who use Wi-Fi's painful official designation, 802.11. Here's a more familiar name for the technology: radio. The Wi-Fi card in your laptop is a receiver, and the Wi-Fi router--which plugs into a cable or DSL modem at your home or office or coffee shop--is nothing more than a short-range transmitter-receiver. (Here's a piece of trivia for your next cocktail party: the patent on which Wi-Fi technology is based was filed back...