Wi-Fi Is Hitting the Road in Cars, but Technical and Legal Bumps Lie Ahead

WI-FI IS HITTING THE ROAD IN CARS FROM AVIS, BUT TECHNICAL AND LEGAL BUMPS LIE AHEAD
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Christopher Elliott]
Try connecting to a high-speed wireless network from a car, and you are pretty much limited to one method: rigging your laptop computer with a special modem and subscribing to a costly, and sometimes temperamental, wireless service. But Autonet Mobile, a start-up wireless technology company based in San Francisco, is expected to announce this week that it has reached an agreement with Avis Rent A Car System to provide a rolling Wi-Fi hotspot to Avis customers by March. For $10.95 a day, Avis will issue motorists a notebook-size portable device that plugs into a car’s power supply and delivers a high-speed Internet connection. For the moment, the service is intended for business travelers. But Autonet sees its service appealing to families traveling with their children, although its unit is expected to cost $399, about twice as much as current cellular card technology, plus $49 a month for service. A mobile Wi-Fi hotspot that lets laptops and personal digital assistants link to the Internet without the benefit of wires represents an important step toward what technology experts call the “connected car.” Users of these new Wi-Fi hotspots still must contend with technological limitations, like bandwidth restrictions and, for vehicles with too few auxiliary power outlets for all passengers who want to be online at the same time, battery consumption. Questions about the legality of operating a vehicle with a Wi-Fi hotspot onboard are also likely to be raised, according to analysts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/technology/02avis.html?ref=business
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