Copyright Dow Jones & Company Inc Jun 16, 2003 Many new laptops come with Wi-Fi included. You can also install Wi-Fi yourself, though you may want professional help -- perhaps from your company's information-technology department. The cost of Wi-Fi cards has dropped significantly, with many selling now for no more than $40 to $70. Most plug into a PCMCIA or USB slot, although cards for Macintosh models fit somewhere inside the computer. If you're going to connect to an office network, your setup will require special configurations that your company's IT department should handle.
If you travel a lot, you might also want to consider buying a subscription from a wireless Internet service provider, or WISP. These are the companies that provide the access points, usually through a third party, like an airline or hotel. While many hot spots can be free, lots of others -- especially in hotels and airports -- come with a broad range of fees. Having a subscription lets you connect wherever your service is offered without paying a fee to your hotel or airline, for example.
Depending on how much you use a Wi-Fi connection, subscriptions can be cheaper than what you'll pay on the spot. One leading service, Boingo Wireless Inc., Santa Monica, Calif., charges $7.95 for the first two days of service and $7.95 for each additional day, up to $49.95 a month. T-Mobile HotSpot, a service of Deutsche Telekom AG, costs 10 cents a minute, $50 for 300 minutes, $39.99 a month, or $29.99 a month with a one-year contract.
There is a danger, though, that the service you subscribe to will go belly-up -- plenty of WISPs already have. So some Wi-Fi analysts advise against overcommitting when buying Wi-Fi access. "I'd avoid long-term contracts and pay as you go," says John Yunker, an analyst at Pyramid Research in Cambridge, Mass.
Here are some other tips from road warriors who know the ins and outs of using Wi-Fi when traveling:
Bulk up on batteries:
It's no mystery why Intel Corp. built extended battery life into its new Centrino chip with integrated Wi-Fi. If you don't have a Centrino laptop and you're not plugged into an electrical outlet, don't expect your battery to last as long as usual. "Wi-Fi really chews up battery power," says Ron Hardin, director of technology for Memphis, Tenn.-based Davidson Hotel Co.
Confirm your hotel's service:
Just because a hotel has Wi-Fi doesn't mean you can get Wi-Fi in your room. Many hotels confine hot spots to common areas, such as restaurants, in order to lure you to places where they can make money from you hanging around. "It's important to make that distinction as you travel," says Mr. Yunker. "Travelers who want it in their room need to ask and clarify."
Think creatively:
Gordon Astles, president of Asian-Pacific operations for Cisco Systems Inc., is away from his Hong Kong office about 80% of the time and has no time for life without Wi-Fi. His assistants have been able to find hotels with Wi-Fi in a variety of places, such as New Delhi, Hanoi and Bangalore, India. But if Mr. Astles has to stay somewhere with only wired Internet access, he isn't too concerned.
"I bring my own transmitter to the hotel," he says. Many wireless access points are indeed sleek enough to fit inside a brief case, he notes.
Especially at meetings, a Wi-Fi transmitter can come in quite handy. "I frequently bring a wireless access point with me when I travel . . . to various consortium group meetings, to provide wireless access at those meetings," says Conor P. Cahill, chief architect at America Online, a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. "I have several [wireless access points], in several different sizes."
Use a VPN and a personal firewall:
If you or your company have security concerns, consider a virtual private network, which sets up a secure tunnel for your Internet communications. Small companies without the resources for a VPN can consider a WISP that provides VPN software as part of its service.
To protect against password theft or viruses, you should also use firewall software, says William Clark, a Hillsborough, N.C.-based research director at Gartner Inc. "You have to have a personal firewall" along with a VPN to make Wi-Fi safe, he says.