Today's corporate workers are more mobile than ever, and with so many employees trying to get work done away from the office, providing them with real-time access to e-mail and other critical data is necessary for keeping them productive and keeping your business ahead of the competition.
A good way to get mobile workers connected is to hook them up to Metricom Inc.'s Ricochet wireless network using the Sierra Wireless Inc. AirCard 400 for Ricochet. This Ricochet network card functions as a wide-area network interface card, marking a new generation of PC Card modems.
Exactly the size of a credit card, the AirCard 400 inserts into the PC Card Type II slot of a Windows laptop or PDA. The card can work in any computer that runs on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, or Windows NT. It also works in Pocket PCs with a Type II slot. The antenna is removable; so once you've inserted the card and set up your Ricochet account, you can store the card in the PC Card slot at all times, without putting the antenna at risk.
A fast, secure network
Ricochet currently offers 128Kbps service in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas/Fort Worth, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, and the San Francisco Bay area, with 28.8Kbps service available in Seattle and Washington, D.C.
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Sierra Wireless AirCard 400 for Ricochet
We've always enjoyed the freedom that Sierra's AirCard solutions provide, and we were immediately impressed with the performance of the AirCard 400. Our test notebook connected at speeds equal to a wired ISDN connection, and we were able to check e-mail, browse the Web, and even download large files quickly.
The AirCard was a snap to set up. We simply slid the card into our notebook's PC Card Type II slot, installed the setup software and drivers from the included CD-ROM, and entered the Ricochet account information provided by our service provider. Complete installation and configuration took less than 10 minutes.
One drawback to the AirCard is that it currently supports only Windows software drivers. Users of Macintosh and Unix/Linux systems are out of luck.
The availability of the Ricochet network is also limited. Ricochet service and the AirCard 400 are available from a number of Ricochet service providers, including GoAmerica Inc., Juno Online Services Inc., SkyTel Communications Inc., UUNet Technologies Inc., Wireless WebConnect, WorldCom Inc., and other channel partners, but access to the Ricochet network is currently available in only 13 major U.S. cities. The company plans to expand into another 33 locations within the year.
The AirCard 400 costs US$329. Ricochet service plans range in price from $74.95 to $79.95 per month for unlimited access.
The AirCard 400 is an effective tool for mobile workers who need fast wireless connections to check e-mail, browse the Web, and access corporate databases. But at $75 per month per user, most companies will have to be selective when deciding who's going to get the service.
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The Ricochet 128 network uses a microcellular-packet-switching, FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum) technology. The network is IP-compatible and works seamlessly with Internet VPN solutions, allowing users to access corporate LANs and intranets as well as the Internet.
Designed from the ground up for data only, Ricochet is a low-latency network offering reduced transmission time and increased network speed. Because the network's transceivers are deployed in a mesh topology, the network has few single points of failure, which translates into fewer dropped connections for users. Ricochet 128 is also designed to be self-configuring and load-balancing, capable of routing traffic around congested transceivers during peak times.
Ricochet 128 offers numerous security benefits to enterprises concerned with keeping corporate data out of the wrong hands. As its name suggests, the FHSS technology uses a random selection of channels to transmit data packets in the 900MHz band, providing solid security and reduced interference.
Each modem used on Ricochet 128 is assigned a unique serial number that must be recognized at the network level for the device to connect to the network. Once connected, the user's ID and password must be verified before access to services and applications is granted. If the service provider does not recognize the user ID, no connection is made. This additional layer of security protects the enterprise against fraudulent access to corporate data.
The AirCard advantage
Sierra Wireless AirCard faces stiff competition from Novatel Wireless Inc. Merlin PC Card. Both cards work with Ricochet's 128Kbps wireless network to give road warriors fast, easy-to-use wireless connections comparable to ISDN speeds and three times as fast as ordinary dial-up connections.
Unlike the Merlin card, the AirCard 400 functions as a wireless wide-area network interface card, eliminating dial-up and providing noticeably snappier performance. The AirCard's edge results from the way the device communicates with the computer's internals. Unlike the Merlin modem card, which makes a serial connection to the computer, the AirCard connects to the computer's bus, where it communicates directly with the computer's high-speed inner workings.
Users hook up to the network differently with these two devices. With the Merlin modem card, users must initiate a phone call into the wireless network each time they want to connect. The AirCard 400 automatically connects users to the network whenever they turn on the computer, just as a network interface card connects users to a wired Ethernet network. The AirCard disconnects whenever a user closes the connection manually or shuts down the computer.
