PEOPLE with a houseful of computers can now connect them to the Net without
trailing phone leads everywhere. A radio link connects computers to a central
modem up to 300 metres away, so you can pepper PCs around your bedrooms,
outbuildings and garden, and keep them all online.
Airway, a system launched by British Telecom this week, has adapted the
technology already used for DECT digital cordless phones. The Airway base
station has a built-in 56K modem or ISDN adapter that plugs into a phone line as
normal, while each PC has a small transmitter/receiver that plugs into its
serial port. To connect to the Net, a PC sends a 1.9 gigahertz microwave signal
to the base station, which dials out. The base station can relay data to and
from several PCs at the same time. It will also be possible to make DECT phone
calls.
BT says Airway prices will start at around 拢400. Transceivers that plug
into the more modern USB port are being developed.
Advertisement
Apple sells a similar device, called AirPort, but it only works with the
Macintosh. AirPort uses the crowded Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM)
microwave band, at around 2.4 gigahertz. It avoids interference from devices
such as microwave ovens, which also run at 2.4 gigahertz, by spreading data
across the band.
Airway has a far greater transmission range than the forthcoming Bluetooth
system for home wireless networking. Bluetooth also works at 2.4 gigahertz, and
avoids interference by changing frequency 1600 times a second. But it uses such
low power that its signals only travel 10 metres.
Gordon Edge, founder of Scientific Generics, based near Cambridge, is aiming
higher. His company is developing an office networking system that works at 38
gigahertz and carries two-way video. But he says of Airway: 鈥淔or consumer
products, DECT is ideal. The technology is being mass-produced for voice and
it鈥檚 robust. So why not use it for data?鈥�