Technology pundits foresee the day when low-cost wireless devices provide lightning-fast data connections, a future they've labelled with the buzzword "unstrung". Bulky PCs and dial-up modems will be replaced by broadband-ready PDAs, and mobile phones will double as graphics-rich Web browsers. Need to book an airline ticket from London to Harare while riding on the Tokyo subway? Want to download the latest Madonna single while queuing up for a movie in Jakarta? No problem, thanks to a ubiquitous, high-speed network primed for on-the-go commerce.

The vision may be dazzling, but cables are not quite yet doomed. Despite all the hype, wireless technologies remain mired in an extended adolescence. There has yet to be a substantial shakeout among the alphabet soup of competing protocols. Telecommunications companies, hamstrung by outrageous capital costs, have been slow to implement their wireless strategies. And even the most talented industry prophets cannot decide how much speed and functionality consumers will demand.

One technology the public has definitely not embraced is the Wireless Application Protocol (Wap), a set of specifications designed to standardise how handheld devices access Web content. European carriers have been offering Wap-enabled phones for a couple of years, hoping to turn mobile callers into mobile Web surfers.

But Wap was designed for last-generation phones, which feature achingly slow dial-up connection speeds of around 9.6 kilobits per second. Graphics capabilities on such devices are virtually non-existent, which complicates a user's ability to access most Web pages. Wap-specific content can be written in Wireless Markup Language (WML), but it is difficult for programmers to manipulate and master.

As a result, Wap has been received rather coldly. In Australia, less than 15,000 people have purchased Wap phones; of that number, 25% used their phone only once before giving up. A Nielsen Norman Group report on Wap users in London concluded that "Wap usability remains poor," and recommended that companies "sit out the current generation of Wap".

SWITCHED ON

Help is on the way, however, in the form of the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). Already deployed in Britain and Germany, GPRS represents a major shift in how wireless information is transmitted. The majority of wireless digital networks are "circuit-switched", meaning users must establish an exclusive one-to-one connection each time they want to transmit or receive data. This is expensive and cumbersome, since users are charged for airtime that flies by as they laboriously download Web content.

GPRS networks, by contrast, are "packet-switched". Like a cable or DSL hook-up, a GPRS connection is always on, and users are typically charged either a flat monthly fee or according to how much data they download. Wap supporters hope the advent of packet-switched networks will make the protocol more cost-effective, and perhaps lead to a renaissance.

Packet switching is already old hat to the Japanese. In 1999, NTT DoCoMo launched i-mode, Japan's packet-switched answer to Europe's circuit-switched Wap. With over 22 million users at last count, i-mode is the world's most successful mobile Web-browsing technology. In order to provide ample content, DoCoMo has partnered with hundreds of companies willing to create websites specifically formatted for i-mode phones, which are unique in their ability to display relatively sophisticated graphics. One particularly popular application allows users to download pictures of cartoon characters, for a fee of about $1 per image.

Buoyed by its success in Japan, DoCoMo is planning to bring i-mode to western Europe, in conjunction with such telco concerns as KPN of the Netherlands. But wireless experts question whether the Japanese model will work elsewhere. "Japan is different because it has a culture of consumer electronics, of being attracted to new devices, or being a small group of islands that aren't able to get low-cost wireline service," says Rikki Lee, former editor of Wireless Week. "So they will adopt these types of services very quickly and the rest of the world won't." Much of i-mode's success has been attributed to Japan's twin dearth of PCs and spacious homes, which means teenagers must access the Internet via handheld devices while hanging out in public areas.

LAN PLANS

The west is not entirely behind the wireless curve, however. Great advances have been made in the creation of wireless local area networks (WLANs), which enable systems architects to construct cable-free networks. This is a particular boon for urban centres, where older buildings cannot easily be retro-fitted with intricate wires.

Several competing technologies offer cable-free Internet access, including HomeRF and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). But the current leader is the unmemorably named 802.11b. Laptops equipped with 802.11b antennae can wirelessly access the Internet by transmitting radio waves to base stations within 45 metres. The standard can support connections up to 11 megabits per second, about 200 times faster than a PC modem.

802.11b has picked up key industry support from Apple, which outfits all of its computers with the antennae, and Intel, which selected the standard over HomeRF for its AnyPoint home networking product. Security experts have been more reluctant to offer their endorsement, however. Since the technology operates on the unregulated 2.4 gigahertz band, which is already crowded with cordless phones and microwave ovens, it is particularly susceptible to interference. In April, a group of University of Maryland researchers published a paper entitled Your 802.11 Wireless Network Has No Clothes, in which they revealed how eavesdroppers can tap into the networks.

One possible substitute for 802.11b is its more experimental cousin, 802.11a, which can, theoretically, offer connection speeds of up to 100 Mbps. It operates on the less-trafficked 5 GHz frequency, where its only potential interference stems from Nato satellites. The stumbling block, however, is cost -- adapter cards are likely to remain prohibitively expensive for non-corporate consumers. (An 802.11a rival, HiperLAN2, is near identical in its specifications, but has yet to advance much beyond the research phase.)

TRUE BLUE

For many wireless users, a bigger issue than accessing the Internet is connecting their myriad gadgets to one another. The technology that is being trumpeted as their salvation is Bluetooth, the brainchild of Sweden's Ericsson. Devices with Bluetooth chips connect to one other via infrared waves, at a maximum rate of 1 Mbps. The technology's backers believe that such chips will fall in price, from $25 to $5 each, by 2003, making Bluetooth the most consumer-friendly wireless networking technology.

When Bluetooth devices come within 30 metres of one another, they establish an ad-hoc link, called a "piconet". This link enables PDA users to zap information back and forth, for example, or for someone to transmit data from a handheld PC to a nearby fax machine. There is even the possibility that Bluetooth-equipped shops will be able to flash coupons to the phones of nearby pedestrians. Though too slow to satisfy the demands of WLAN users, Bluetooth does promise to make things easier for gizmo lovers.

There are caveats, of course. Since it operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency band, Bluetooth's performance can be severely crippled by its proximity to a 802.11b device -- a sticking point that may be solved by a two-chip receiver under development by wireless systems company Mobilian. The media's embrace of Bluetooth may also have created some unrealistic expectations about the technology's readiness for the mass market; at a recent consumer electronics show in Hanover, a Bluetooth demonstration ended disastrously when a piconet crashed.

THE NEXT FRONTIER

Wireless networking may be a handy trick, but it is hardly telco's holy grail. The industry dreams of constructing Internet-ready devices that operate at broadband-comparable speeds, a wireless future known as third generation (3G). The advent of GPRS is step one in the upgrading process -- a technological waystation nicknamed 2.5G. The end goal, however, is a family of handheld devices that can transmit data at upwards of 2.4 Mbps, twice as fast as current cable and DSL connections. Telecom executives dream of teenagers using video-capable phones to download movie trailers, or adults making real-time Yahoo! auction bids on their PDAs.

Not surprisingly, there are a host of wireless protocols competing for 3G market share. Most of Asia and Europe are planning on converting from the Global Standard for Mobile Communications (GSM) to Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA). In the US, where narrowband CDMA is more popular than GSM, carriers are divided over whether to adopt W-CDMA or a Qualcomm-developed alternative called CDMA2000. To complicate matters further, iconoclastic systems based on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), such as AT&T's, plan on migrating to something called Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (Edge). How devices based on these rival standards will communicate with one another is unknown.

Regardless of the standards involved, upgrading current networks to 3G will be an exorbitantly costly endeavour. European telcos spent nearly $130 billion purchasing spectrum last year, for example. Analysts at Herschel Shosteck Associates have estimated that the global price tag for 3G will eventually hover around $751 billion. Some wonder whether subscription fees will ever be adequate to help the telcos recoup their investment. "The major consideration in the US and Europe is 'If you build it, will they come?'" says Randy Katz, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. "Capital markets have become negative, even bearish, on cutting additional debt for these companies." That pessimism is evident in the significant number of layoffs that have recently affected the wireless sector, especially at Motorola and Ericsson.

The US has particular 3G problems, since much of the relevant spectrum is controlled by either television networks or the military. Only Japan seems to be moving toward a workable 3G system, but even there, technical problems have delayed a much-anticipated May launch. Europe may have to wait until 2004-2005 to reach a viable stage for 3G; the US may not get there for a decade.

The fate of 3G ultimately rests in the hands of consumers, who may be unmoved by the prospect of high-speed mobile Internet access. "It's like the question of digital TV -- what's the need?" says Rikki Lee. "Do you really need a phone that will cost $200 more but with a colour display?" Perhaps people will be satisfied with more limited devices -- phones that allow them to check their email and send messages, but not download MP3s or view sports webcasts.

3G proponents point to a rosy future for mobile commerce, which the Strategis Group estimates will become a $5 billion-a-year industry by 2004. But will people really be gung-ho about using their PDAs to purchase goods and services online? "Anytime I get on a plane, I flip through that catalogue they give you in the seat pocket -- but I've never ordered anything," says Katz. "I'm a little sceptical about buying a lot from your cell phone." As was the case with dotcoms, it's sometimes difficult to separate bluster from fact when peering into our unstrung future.