I wanted to share some excitement with you folks.

I've started using broadband wireless and it absolutely rocks. This
is the same technology that was developed for the big overnight
shippers - where you can see online that you signed for a package,
just minutes after the fact. During the last week I've been
travelling and using my PC wherever I could get a mobile/cellular
signal, restaurants, client offices, friends' houses, forest preserve,
airports, and in my car (usually parked but it's fun checking maps on
the highway). I did some work on Jeff Caspari's website and some
coding for another client from my favorite little italian coffee shop
in Chicago - no Starbucks required. My wife wanted a certain kind of
tea from Chinatown, so while I was there she scanned an image of the
box and posted it to our website which I was able to see within
seconds. (From the box I was able to write the name in chinese on
paper to ask people who didn't speak english. Didn't find the tea
though *sigh*.)

The sense of freedom and convenience is amazing. I am absolutely
stoked on this stuff. This is the way computing is going and in a
short time I know everyone will take this for granted. For now I feel
like the drug dealer has given me a taste of his candy and I'm too
high to refuse buying more..

Special thanks to Zumasys, Paul Giobbi, and his excellent team for
providing hardware, setup, services, support, and information!!

Now back in the office, being wired even to a cable modem seems so
primitive. I'm tempted to pop in the wireless card and setup office
in my back yard by the pond - which still doesn't compare to Richard
Ginsburg's, but it's getting there.

I have a couple clients who could use this technology for sales people
in the field. Right now they're using a disconnected application on
their laptops which stores data locally and then the data is sync'd
whenever the sales rep gets back to the office. With broadband
wireless they can check their customer orders, file new orders,
allocate inventory, and all sorts of other features right from their
customers' offices, or right after an appointment. The same goes for
another application I know of where social workers visit families and
take notes on paper and then key the data later. All of this double
entry and latency can be eliminated with broadband wireless and a
regular laptop - or a tablet PC or a PDA.

For developers and service providers, it's really great to be able to
get online to check mail or make code changes for a client. I don't
need to go through the last minute rush of loading my PC with
everything I need before a trip, worrying about how much a hotel will
charge for net access, how much time I'm spending on someone's phone
line, or whether someone is going to send me too big of an attachment.
And when going to a conference like Spectrum, it's really convenient
to be able to show someone a website, download data, or just check
e-mail at break time.

OK, enough from the "kid in the candystore", you get the idea, I need
to calm down and get back to work. If any of you are interested in
breaking the wire for your users, please call Zumasys or me - I would
be very excited about helping some of you to open up access to your
applications with this stuff.

Regards,
Tony
TG@ removethisNebula-RnD .com

Tony Gravagno wrote:
[snip]
Sounds like a solution to a serious problem of mine. Whenever I go out,
I have to leave the best part of my memory behind. It's pretty much
impossible for me to get any real work done without Web access, and
especially Google.

I sometimes wonder if this is a reflection of my age, or more a matter
of the increasing complexity of the technologies with which I'm engaged.
Naturally, I tend to lean toward the latter opinion. <g>

Luke

What company are you getting your service from? (offhand, I'm only aware of
one that offers broadband wireless, but I thought I'd ask...)

Hi Brian,

Some friends and I have been using Verizon for several years on our
boats with very good results. Likely this is regional to a certain
extent ... we are in the Lower Great Lakes. Sprint bites here but I
have heard that it is good in other places.

HTH,
-Tom

Tony,

I have a customer who supplied his outside sales staff with laptops hooked
up with Verizon. They found the service to be spotty, unreliable, and
expensive. They eventually abandoned the laptops. How come yours works so
well and in so many places?

Jeff

"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote

My office in Ontario has been using this service (from Verizon-$80/month)
for a few months and have found it to be quite slow.

Rob
"Jeffrey Kaufman" <jkaufman (AT) keydata (DOT) us> wrote

Jeff

How long ago did that customer use Verizon or where? They started
rolling out a newer, higher speed network about 6 months ago.
Compatible with the older version. But the high speeds are currently
limited to places like NYC. Full national rollout to take another 2
years. Current cost is $59 per month. Which is a darn sight higher
then their current low speed DSL for $15.

Roger
"Jeffrey Kaufman" <jkaufman (AT) keydata (DOT) us> wrote

In response to the inquiries:
- This is Verizon Broadband Access.
- Hardware is a Sierra Wireless Aircard 580
- Advertised rates are $80/mo or $59 with new phone service. YMMV

In normal coverage areas which are expanding rapidly, the card uses
EVDO (high quality digital 3G cellular) with a real rate of about
200-300 kpbs (advertised 300-500 with 2Mbps bursts). Out of prime
range it switches down to about 40-60kbps (advertised 144kbps bursts).
I encountered few such switches, even in rural areas from west coast
to midwest, or at about 80mph on the highway. (Don't ask) Or maybe
it's more fair to say I didn't notice the switches. In real use like
checking e-mail in the background or using telnet you don't notice the
difference.

The Zumasys value-add, one of their reasons for being involved with
this technology, is to assist with Citrix connectivity to give
end-users the same experience as a LAN user, even with a diskless thin
client with an embedded OS. They can provide the complete hardware,
service, software solution, and integration with back-end servers. I
wasn't using Citrix myself, I use RDC or VPN or other means to get
around, but each shop will have their own requirements.

I guess I'm connecting dots that I didn't mention before. One of the
prime features of MS .NET is the attention paid to disconnected
architectures. I'm not saying .NET is the only technology to be used
for writing clients here but it's a very good candidate. As I see it,
these aren't a brand new technologies (some of you mentioned you tried
it years ago) but we are seeing them now come into maturity so that
they can be used in real world apps. We're at the point where it now
seems safe to start investing in development of (GUI) clients that
"expect" to run wirelessly and directly into a back-end MV server, but
they must also be forgiving of slower or dropped connections (which is
where developing around a disconnected architecture like .NET can be a
big benefit). Most apps are written so that a failure to connect is
reported to the user and the user simply shuts down the app. These
days we can display a little green/red light in the status bar to show
connectivity, but we can legitimately expect the green light to be on
and for the data to be flowing as soon as we re-establish comms.
Years ago we didn't have the options - or if we did they weren't as
stable.

There are other benefits here. If you're working with Citrix, no apps
are running on the local PC, they're all on the server and there are
no client deployment issues. We could do this before but now reliable
broadband wireless access makes this really feasible and more useful.
Also, if users lose their portable device (laptop, tablet, PDA) then
there is little or no loss of software licenses, recent data,
passwords, etc. (A very painful event.) I don't know what PC
insurance costs, but I'm wondering if premiums would be reduced if
there is nothing but hardware claimed in a loss - the difference might
pay for the cost of the technology itself. And for those of you
trying to offer website access to your applications, you may be
familiar with the simple concept that your clients aren't always web
connected to use your software - well, here's your answer.

If you think about where communications technology has taken us: from
pagers to car phones, car phone to disposable handhelds, PDA's to
Blackberries, dialup to Wi-Fi, and people sending millions of emails
and SMS messages to one another every day - it seems obvious that this
is the next trend that businesses will be adopting very soon, and the
major players are out there building the infrastructures for us to
make use of it. It may not be perfect now, probably never will be,
but it is very very good, and that's good enough for us to start
making some money with it.

Again, contact me or Zumasys, tell um Tony sent ya . I have ideas
and can build software around this. They can provide and support the
infrastructure and understand the needs of MV user/developers.

Still stoked, calming down a little since I got back on the wire.
Tony
TG@ removethisNebula-RnD .com

They gave up on it about 6 months ago. The sales staff covers Marin, Sonoma,
Napa, and Mendocino counties, north of the Golden Gate. Coverage is not that
good up there. Their telnet sessions kept dropping and they would have to
log back in and start over.

Now they are using the Sprint Pocket PC to enter orders on a web site.
Non-persistent sessions don't mind when the connection drops for a few
moments. They are not real pleased with that solution either, but it is
better than telnet.

Jeff

"rog" <rglenospamfld (AT) optonospamline (DOT) net> wrote

Tony and the group,

This is exactly the setup ($59 with new phone service) that I just
signed up for yesterday late afternoon. Haven't had a chance to
install it yet, but will report back.

Their current coverage map for Broadband has almost as much coverage
as their "National Access" map.

Other business, your mention of Zumasys leads me to wonder:

Who from this group is going to the Zumapalooza next month?

I'll start the answers with: I am! I am!

Steven J Dorst
Sysadmin, Postmaster, Webmaster, Inside Sales,
Purchasing Assistant, Oh well, let's just say:
Jack of way too many, but not all, trades!
http://www.laner.com
mailto: Take my first name, append an underscore,
append my last name, then append "at"
laner.com

On Fri, 14 Oct 2005 00:30:42 -0500, Tony Gravagno
<g6q3x9lu53001 (AT) sneakemail (DOT) com.invalid> wrote: