Tuesday, August 13, 2002

The way work should be

It was a tough assignment, but wireless technology won over this plugged-in intern reporter.

By SAM LaGRONE
THE ROANOKE TIMES

    I thought: "Every day of work should be like this."

    I was testing the wireless Internet service at the Wyndham Roanoke Airport Hotel. The year-old system is one of the few wireless networks in the Roanoke Valley, including those in the Carilion Health System and at the Roanoke Regional Airport, and is the only hotel-based one. It promised all the connectivity that I have at The Roanoke Times, plus more-comfortable chairs and no wires to hold me back.

    The hotel's assistant engineer, Bob Mills, explained how the system works. The network, run by Texas - based Wayport Inc., has two antennas in the public areas of the hotel that send signals to another antenna I have in my laptop. For a $9.95 charge, I could access my e-mail, the Internet and instant messaging software, just like I can using a modem or an Ethernet connection.

    The system relies on the same technology as newer cordless phones. It's called an 802.11 type connection, according to the Webopedia, a dictionary of online terms. It refers to any area network that uses high-frequency radio signals instead of wires.

    For those of us who aren't very technologically minded , let's call it magic and leave it at that.

    For me, this wireless Internet experience was the culmination of a lifetime of computer use.

    I grew up bull ' s-eyeing pixel buffalo on the Oregon Trail, the finest wagon train simulation money could buy, on my family 's Apple IIGS and then was the first kid on my block with an e-mail address when I was a sophomore in high school. (I had to wait awhile before I had someone to e-mail.)

    I retain the desire to be connected to my network of information as tightly as possible. I will develop a noticeable twitch if I'm away from an Internet connection for more than a few days. As a consequence, my first solution to any problem is almost always digital .

    Such as the time I was lost in suburban Washington, D.C. Instead of stopping at a gas station for directions, I picked up my cellphone and called my friend Tony in Chicago - two time zones away - to read me directions from Mapquest and tell me where to go.

    Connected, plugged in, hooked up, in touch and wired: This is my flaky online mantra.

    At the Wyndham, I couldn't wait to get online. Bob left me on my own and I fired up my machine, ready to take on the Web from the comfort of the lobby sofa, with absolutely no strings attached.

    I hit a snag. Apparently, the first step of any new bleeding - edge technology is a call to technical support . Wayport put me in touch with Josh, the tech guy, in the nerve center of its operation in Texas. I imagined Josh sitting in a bunker hewn out of the bedrock a mile below the desert in a darkened room with the bluish glow of a computer screen reflecting off his glasses while giant monitors tracked the status of the network. I was disappointed to find out that Josh worked in an office building with windows.

    Josh patched me up, I paid my connection fee, and in five minutes I was chatting with my college roommate in Lexington as well as a friend who had just returned from Italy, all the while playing online pool with a gentleman who I think was Bulgarian.

    It ruled. The connection speed allowed me to download at the rate of about 177 kilobytes a second. That will get you an average-size Billy Joel MP3 in a little less than 17 seconds. I do think I was the only wireless user on the network, however. Bob said the wireless network isn't as popular as the in-room connection.

    And I think it showed. I drew stares from hotel guests. People waiting to check in evidently did not feel the same way I did about my sleek laptop. To them I was a technology snob, rubbing their noses in ultra-fast stock quotes and up-to-the-second news.

    I felt guilty. I wasn't a business person who needed to send an urgent memo or a broker making a deal. I had become a member of the obnoxious breed of p eople who sit in your favorite restaurant and chat to a disembodied voice - typing needlessly on their machines. It was a revelation in gee-whiz technology: Gee whiz, I'm a jerk.

    On the other hand, other people use it. I spoke with two women who were leaving a convention at the hotel who had depended on the wireless system to keep in touch with the home office. And maybe having " Piano Man" Billy Joel at my fingertips wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe wireless will be the next step for the rest of us.

    Gee whiz, that would be neat-o.