1999-05-17 Special Called Meeting and Workshop Meeting

Browse Search

tional phone connections. It's the Ricochet Wireless modem, and it comes from an outfit called Metricom in Los Gatos, Calif. I've been using a Ricochet for quite a while now, and it makes my life easier whenever I go to a city where its wireless network has been deployed. I just check in to the hotel, connect the modem to my lap- top's serial port, turn it on and click on an icon on my screen, and I'm usually con- nected at 28.8 kilobits per second, the speed of most regular modems. It's the same at airports. You can send e-mail while sitting at the gate or at a table in a snack bar. Not only that, but you can remain con- tinuously connected to the Internet for as long as you like, because there's no charge per "call" or per minute. So if you set your software to automatically retrieve e-mail, you can leave the hotel for a meeting and find all your messages already down- loaded when you return. And you can go right to any Web page you want. The Ricochet modem I use —the SE — is a small, black, rectangular unit with a screen and a foldout antenna that looks like a little cell phone, but isn't. It's less than 5 inches long, 2.3 inches wide and just an inch thick, and it weighs a mere 8 ounces. These dimensions include the slim battery, which lasts from eight to 12 hours. There's also a small, light AC adapter. Both fit easily in a corner of a briefcase. The modem itself costs $349, about double the price of a standard model. And the fee for unlimited monthly use of the In- ternet and e-mail is $29.95, about 50 per- cent more than the standard cost of un- limited access over phone lines, though you can cut this to $24.92 if you pay for a year ($299) up front. But if you travel much, you can save enough on hotel and credit-card phone charges to more than make up the difference. And if you live in an area with Ricochet service, you can use it at home and save the cost of a dedicat- ed phone line or of the extra traffic on your main phone line. Which brings up the principal draw- back of the Ricochet. It works only with Metricom's proprietary wireless network, which is propagated by small transceivers that hang from streetlights in cities and suburbs. That's an expensive setup, and Metricom has so far built networks in on- ly three metro areas officially, and in a fourth unofficially. The three advertised cities are San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. I've used my Ricochet in various city and suburban neighborhoods in all three, with good results. The Ricochet even worked fine in the Bay Area all the way down into Silicon Valley, and in the D.C. area in a distant Maryland suburb outside the Belt- way. The fourth city is Los Angeles, where a large swath of the Westside has been net- worked for Ricochet as part of a project for the police. Even though this system is meant for the cops, any Ricochet owner can use it. I tested it in West Hollywood, and it worked great. In addition, Metricom has hooked up 11 airports, even if the surrounding cities aren't yet networked. They include airports in New York (LaGuardia) and Washing- ton (National), as well as in Minneapolis, Seattle, Baltimore and Phoenix, and in Cal- ifornia, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, Orange County and Los Angeles (LAX). And a number of small cities in the West and Midwest, including Scottsbluff and Gering in Nebraska and Casper, Wyo., are getting Ricochet networks. Metricom is working on setting up sys- tems in New York (part of Brooklyn is unofficially wired already), Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston. But it's short of capital for expansion and is trying to attract utility and phone companies as partners. (It already has a deal with a unit of Brooklyn Union Gas.) It needs money for marketing, too. Without a prominent ad campaign, it has so far signed up only about 15,000 subscribers. This is a shame, because the modem and the network really work well. Al- though Metricom claims the modem achieves speeds of 14.4 to 28.8kbps, de- pending on location, I've found I almost always connect at 28.8. It works with lap- tops and some handheld computers. It al- so works fine with desktop computers, both PCs and Macs, though you may need an optional longer cable, as the radio in the modem can cause desktop monitors to flicker if they're too close. There are other Ricochet modems in ad- dition to the SE model I use. The older, somewhat larger Original sells for $99— without a battery —for desktop use; the mobile version runs $299. And an ultra - thin SX model will arrive later this year for $379. It's longer and wider than the SE model, but is just 0.4 inches thick. It's de- signed to fit under a handheld computer such as a Philips Velo or Apple Newton, or to hug the lid of a laptop, attached with Velcro. Besides the monthly fee, there's a one- time $45 activation charge. Metricom sup- plies you with an e-mail address and ac- count, but you can also use the Ricochet to access an existing account you may have with a service provider, company or university. It works fine with America On- line if you set the AOL software to connect over a TCP/IP link. You can use any Web browser or e-mail software package. Ricochet's soft- ware installs a "dialer," which doesn't re- quire a phone number and connects you to the network almost instantly. If you use a Ricochet e-mail account, you can arrange to access it by regular phone when you're not in a Ricochet -networked area, for $5 to $10 a month extra. And you can sign up for special plans to dial directly into a cor- porate network and to use Ricochet on a college campus. If you live in or often travel to any Ric- ochet city, check out this wireless modem. It's one technology that delivers. O1997 by SmartMoney, a joint venture of Hearst Communkatlons. Inc, and Dow Jones & Company, Inc. N o v s m s s R 1997