Are You Ready to Wi-Fi?(wireless technology grows up)

What a tangled mess we weave, when we practice to, uh... set up a computer network. Fear not, say the arbiters of technology. Wires, at least the ones that connect your computer to the Internet, may soon be as obsolete as dial-up modems. "Once you get wireless, you never want to go back to being tethered to a connection," says Julie Ask, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. "It's very addictive."

Although wireless technologies encompass everything from cell phones to remote controls, "Wi-Fi" refers to a specific industry standard. Known as 802.11 in geek talk, it operates at unprecedented speeds by beaming data from a Wi-Fi radio hooked up to the Internet. The radio waves travel over a finite area, ranging from a couple of hundred to a couple of thousand feet. Inside that range, a properly equipped computer or PDA can pick up the signals. Wi-Fi "cuts the cord between your desktop unit or your laptop unit and the network," says Michael Disabato, a senior analyst at the Burton Group who specializes in wireless technologies.

According to Gartner, a research firm, Wi-Fi is catching on--it estimates the number of users in North America will grow nearly tenfold between 2003 and 2007, reaching 31 million. Europe is expected to follow suit, and IDC Research predicts 110 percent worldwide growth in the number of "hot spots"--public places where you can use Wi-Fi--over the next five years. In Asia, Wi-Fi growth is starting to pick up speed after struggling to get off the ground last year.

More important, the technology is getting easier to use. The industry learned from the problem that plagued the first bout of wireless products in the mid-'90s: incompatibility. To avoid that pitfall, a group of industry players started the Wireless Fidelity Alliance (or Wi-Fi) in 1999 to set an industry standard. Most new PDAs now have Wi- Fi connectivity, which means they can communicate with all ...