The Hindu Business Line : Accessing Net: It's the cordless card way

GANESH has a simple solution when he wants to access the Net through his laptop on his travels but cannot. He inevitably ends up in his branch offices.

For he finds that hotels offering Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity is a service that allows you to access the Net without wires) charge exorbitant sums. In some cases, "it comes to Rs 150 per hour. That's way too much. I don't mind travelling for even an hour from the airport to my office to be able to access the Net."

Chandra, another frequent traveller, solved this problem by buying a Reliance solution: A cord that helped connect his laptop to his mobile. From then on, it was just the same as making the usual voice-call except that only data would flow to and from the laptop.

Says Chandra, "I tried this on my train journey between Jabalpur and Chennai. I was impressed with the reach of the network."

On digging around a bit, Business Line found at least two products that do away with even the cord required to connect the laptop to the phone, in order to connect to the Net.

The Gtran datacard comes from a company by the same name. Sold by Reliance here, the card is as big as a visiting card and fits into the relevant slot in a laptop.

When you install the software that comes along with the card, you are ready to dial in. Put simply, this is like a mobile phone inside your computer, which transmits and receives only data. Costing about Rs 15,000, the card promises data speeds between 55 and 65 kilo bits per second (kbps).

In contrast, our good old telephone line promises speeds of around 31 kbps. Reliance offers several packages. The most basic has a monthly rental component of Rs 200. Connection charges come to 40 paise per minute, a company official said.

Chandra, the Reliance user, says, "It comes to about the same that I pay up monthly using the cord and the mobile." Asked why he opted for Reliance's cord-based connection, Chandra only says that he didn't find a comparable product in the market.

The other card in the market is Nokia's D211 radio-card, which approximately costs Rs 20,000. To use it to connect to the Net wirelessly, one needs a SIM card (that GSM phones use to connect the handset to the nearest tower). This card goes into the D211. As a single unit, the two cards are placed in the same, relevant slot indicated above.

Ganesh, the other user who still prefers the landline even when he travels, says that he did consider the D211 earlier, but did not pick it up. "I wanted the same number with two SIM cards: one for my phone and the other for my laptop."

This is technically possible but depends on the operator's willingness to offer it to a consumer. Ganesh could have taken two SIM cards with different numbers but that would have meant another minimum monthly rental on the second card.