Why Not Try Wi-Fi?

Waiting in the wings, though, are the big wireless-phone companies. The telcos have been pushing their own upcoming wireless-data services, generically known as 3G (third generation) and--perhaps more realistically in the near term--2.5G. Such services already are popular in Europe and Japan. The smart money has the national wireless infrastructure shaping up as a hybrid of Wi-Fi and 2.5G or 3G, with Wi-Fi offering high speeds at low or no cost over very small areas and the Gs covering wide areas at lower speeds and relatively high cost. Hardware is catching up to this hybrid model; Nokia recently announced a PC card offering both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

But Charles Golvin of Forrester Research says the driving force behind the Wi-Fi nation will not be hardware: "The more important part is, What is the service provider offering you? Can you get one bill that encompasses all the services you use, no matter where you go?" Ease of use and ubiquity, in other words--or something close to it--are the grails of the wireless world, just as they were in the early days of the Internet. "I always had this view as I was building EarthLink," Dayton says. "Why should I have to be near a plug? Why shouldn't the Internet just be present at all times where you are?"

NAN No. 1 is at an address in the hills above Pasadena. I take five freeways, three major thoroughfares and a spiderweb of smaller and smaller streets to get there. But I never do, because the turnoff listed on my map as Country Lane--two turns from my destination in a cul-de-sac--is plastered with signs reading PRIVATE DRIVE DO NOT ENTER NO TRESPASSING ARMED RESPONSE. I seem to be about half a mile from my goal, well beyond the range of a wireless-access point, and--communitarian spirit notwithstanding--I am not feeling encouraged to go the rest of the way. This seems like the kind of neighborhood in which home defense is enthusiastically practiced. The glow of good feeling fading, I wind down the hill to NAN No. 2, at an intersection in the leafy neighborhood of East Washington Village. I pull up to the southeast corner and unleash my laptop's sniffer. Nothing. Feeling increasingly foolish, I wheel my car to the three other corners, which yield nothing, nothing and nothing. I look at my odometer. I have driven 52 miles. I head for home.

A few days later, I get an e-mail from Frank Keeney, who operates NAN No. 2. He asks if I was able to find it. Nope, I write back. He sends a reply that says a lot about the state of Wi-Fi today: "If you'd gone about 100 feet down the road, you would have."