Googling at 5,000 Meters; Wireless revolution aside, a large portion of the planet's surface is still beyond range of cell-phone and Wi-Fi networks. For some people, that is just not acceptable.

Byline: David H. Freedman

Eric Duneman wanted the facts on a construction firm that was bidding on a project he's overseeing. So the 34-year-old Iowan dug up the information the way millions of people do every day: he Googled it. Unlike most Web surfers, however, Duneman wasn't in his office, his den, his hotel room or even a Wi-Fi-equipped Starbucks. He was sitting next to his car 5,000 meters up in the mountains of northeast Afghanistan, a half day's hard travel from the nearest phone line or cell-phone tower.

Duneman is one of a small but growing army of ultra-road-warriors who often wander far beyond the reach of even the faintest cell-phone roaming signals--and are willing to spend big bucks to stay plugged in while doing it. These Internet-addicted trekkers are turning to what has long been considered the last resort of the "connectoscenti": portable satellite links. Despite a reputation for bulky equipment and slow, spotty, exorbitantly priced connections, on-the-road satellite Internet access has improved to the point where tens of thousands of users now roam mountain, ocean and jungle with a reliable online link tucked in a slim briefcase. "Sometimes you have to know what's happening at the office," says Kevin Hughes, a US Airways dispatcher who packs an Internet-enabled satellite phone alongside his underwear when he travels. "What's that peace of mind worth?" Improvements in the next few years may shrink always-connected devices down to pocket size, for a price that even vagabond students can afford.

The current gotta-have-it among the wired peripatetic is an ultralight, laptop-computer-size satellite terminal with an antenna built into the lid--which will set you back $1,500. The service, called regional broadband global area network, or R-BGAN, is offered by London-based Inmarsat. You hook up a laptop to the terminal and access the Internet as you would in your home or office, at speeds about five times as fast as a dial-up connection. The service costs about $10 for every 600 pages of text, 15 typical Web pages or 20 photos you download or send--about what you'd typically pay for dial-up access in a hotel room. The only drawback: you have be outside, or at least next to a window, with no trees or buildings blocking the line of sight to the satellite 36,000 kilometers up.

That's not a problem for Duneman. Sky is the one thing he's got plenty of in Afghanistan, where he's managing the construction or renovation of 130 rural schools and clinics throughout the country. Because construction crews are racing the onslaught of heavy snows expected by November, Duneman wanted to cut out the interminable delays caused by driving four hours to get to a phone in order to submit engineering changes and progress reports. Last year a 22,500-kilometer road construction project was held up eight days by slow debate about the appropriate shape for drainage ditches.

Now when Duneman visits sites, he routinely fires up his R-BGAN terminal and IBM laptop--he charges them with his car's cigarette-lighter socket--and swaps site photographs, spreadsheets and blueprints with engineers, foremen and planners around the country and in the United States. He also researches contractors and equipment, and tracks the progress of storms across the Himalayas. "I'm getting more information more quickly with less travel," he says. "It's hard to imagine doing this without Internet access." He figures he'd have to scratch 30 of the school and clinic projects if it weren't for the satellite link.

R-BGAN, whose coverage is limited to Europe, Africa, India and the Middle East, is actually just a warm-up for the full-fledged BGAN service scheduled to come online next year when Inmarsat launches the two largest commercial satellites ever made--each as big as a double-decker ...