Wireless Broadband Buying Guide 1

One of the key advantages of wireless broadband is, of course, theability to take your Internet connection with you. Although many peoplethink that all wireless broadband services are mobile, an importantdistinction needs to be made, between mobile broadband and portablebroadband. Even fixed wireless broadband (ie, confined to one building)is portable because you can move anywhere in the building and haveconstant access without being confined to a power point or externalmodem. Portable broadband means that you can access the Internet anywherewithin a certain coverage area. This normally means that you are in ahot-spot, near a base station or have an antenna to connect you to abase station. Mobile broadband is a newer phenomenon and one which is growingrapidly. Mobile broadband enables you to access your wireless broadbandwhile on the move, meaning you can use it while on the train, bus orferry. In Australia, true mobile wireless is available through iBurst'stechnology but this is set to change with the introduction of WiMAX(more on WiMax later). If mobility is important, be careful to check with your ISP aboutmobility options. OzEmail, for instance, which resells both Unwired andiBurst, makes the distinction between mobile and portable wirelessInternet. Veritel, another reseller of both services, calls its Unwiredservice "fixed wireless Internet," while its iBurst product is called"mobile wireless Internet." (Incidentally, we find the Veritelnomenclature a little confusing, since it is possible to take theUnwired modem from place to place and use the account wherever you maybe - you just can't use it while actually moving). WiFi Hotspots The idea of being able to access your wireless broadband outside yourhome began with Wi-Fi hotspots. These are places where you could go and(if you had a subscription to the service) access the Internet fromyour notebook through a local Wi-Fi access point. Wi-Fi hotspotservices are still around, especially in cafes, restaurants and otherpublic places. A number of service providers, such as Telstra, AzureWireless, Optus Connect, SkyNet Global and iPrimus, have set upnetworks of such wireless hotspots around the country. To access theInternet through one of their Wi-Fi hotspots, you need an account withthe provider and a standard Wi-Fi (802.11b or g) network card in yournotebook or PDA. Some providers will have 'roaming' partnerships withother providers which further extends the coverage available. Forexample, SkyNet Global will let customers use its own hotspots plusthose of its partners which include Telstra, Azure and Unwired. Checkeach provider's website to view a map of their coverage. However, wireless hotspots have largely fallen out of favour as wide-area mobile broadband services gain popularity. Led by iBurst and Unwired at the present time in Australia, theseservices offer metropolitan-wide reception areas and broadband speedsof up to 1Mbps. A single iBurst account, for instance, gives youbroadband access to the Internet from nearly anywhere in metropolitanSydney or Melbourne (along with several other cities as the networkconstantly expands). This is made possible by their network of aerialswhich act like uber Wi-Fi access points, delivering blanket coverage ofwireless networking over the metropolitan areas. Wireless access With wide-area wireless broadband services, you have one account, whichyou use to access the Internet from your home, office, park, or even onthe train. As long as you have your modem and a PC, and are in acoverage area, you have Internet access. This is a major benefit tothose who move around a lot, or want to have one Internet account forboth work and home. Wide-area wireless broadband providers have been careful to keeppricing parity with ADSL services. You can't get quite as good a dealon wireless broadband as you can on ADSL, but the gap is narrowing.With wireless, prices range from $50 to $80 per month for a 512Kbpsconnection and a reasonable quota (5-20GB), and around $100 per monthfor a 1Mbps connection with a similar quota. After reaching your quota,most providers either restrict you to dial-up speeds for the rest ofthe billing period or allow you to buy extra volume at a fixed price. While we're not covering it extensively here, there is another solutionfor users to whom coverage or mobility is paramount: using the mobilephone network data services. All the major mobile phone networkproviders offer GPRS services, and some offer 3G data services that candeliver Internet access at near-broadband speeds. However, these arenot consumer services; at present GPRS and 3G are extremely expensive(in some cases over a hundred times more than consumer Internet access)and targeted primarily at businesses. Availability The availability of wireless broadband works very much like that ofmobile phones. If you're in range of a wireless receiver (equivalent,in this sense, to a mobile cell tower), then you have an Internetconnection. If not, then you have nothing. In some cases, you may bejust in range but have poor or intermittent reception, which mightresult in slower than normal speeds. You do not need line-of-sight toget reception. Each of the providers has a range of wireless receivers stationedaround their coverage areas. Unwired, for instance, claims to haveenough receivers to cover the homes of more than 90 per cent of thepopulation of Sydney. The most important thing to look at when choosing a wireless broadbandprovider is whether they have coverage in all the areas you might wantto use your broadband connection. You need to check with the providervery carefully. At the moment none of the major providers have anythinglike mobile phone coverage, but they do cover the most denselypopulated areas of the major cities. If you want mobile phone-likecoverage, you need to look into GPRS or 3G data services. If you're in a marginal reception area, such as the outlying areas ofthe major cities, you may find the connection drops out occasionally,as weather patterns and other interference wreak havoc with yourwireless connection. For this reason, we recommend only going withservice providers that have some kind of money-back guarantee for thosewho can't get good reception. You don't want to be caught with anInternet connection that only works half the time.