IF YOU find the dream of a mobile office always turns into a nightmare of
broken modem leads, incompatible standards and tricky hotel telephone exchanges,
help may be at hand. A British company thinks it can make life much easier for
the world鈥檚 14 million laptop-wielding executives
Scientific Generics of Cambridge is trying to convince phone companies and
cash machine makers to adopt its idea of Internet 鈥淧it Stops鈥�. The company wants
to create a network of kiosks set up at railway stations, hotels and airports
where sending and receiving e-mail would be as easy as plugging a card into a
socket.
鈥淭he process of wiring up a laptop to send or receive e-mail can take up to
10 minutes鈥攁nd that鈥檚 a lot of time to waste just checking to see if
you鈥檝e one e-mail,鈥� says Phil Collins, telecoms project leader at Scientific
Generics. The comical sight of laptop users struggling to hold their computer
with one hand and plug it into data sockets on payphones with the other inspired
their invention, he says. 鈥淭he whole idea of Pit Stop is quick, convenient
补肠肠别蝉蝉.鈥�
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To use it, you would write e-mails at your leisure and save them on a flash
memory card in your laptop鈥檚 card slot. Then you would simply take the card out
and plug it into a Pit Stop terminal, which would send the e-mail and retrieve
any incoming messages. 鈥淵ou carry your incoming and outgoing e-mail on a flash
memory card and plug it into a machine not unlike an ATM,鈥� says Collins.
The Pit Stop terminals themselves might use various methods to connect to the
Net, such as a 128 kilobits per second ISDN line or the forthcoming 10 megabits
per second Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) technology. At these
speeds, the download and upload time would be considerably faster than the 9.6
kilobits per second wireless data transmission offered by existing GSM digital
mobile phones.
However, cellphones will soon be capable of sending data at much greater
speeds. One technique currently being tested increases speeds to 100 kilobits
per second, and even greater speeds will be possible with the planned third
generation Universal Mobile Telephone System, for which standards are still
being set.
Nevertheless, Collins says cash machine firms are particularly interested in
using the technology, although he would not name names. 鈥淭hey are very
positive,鈥� he says. 鈥淭he parallel between information and money is very powerful
in this respect. The idea that your e-mail is as accessible as your cash is key,
because it might be just as valuable to you if you鈥檙e a business person on the
尘辞惫别.鈥�
Similar projects include British Telecom鈥檚 plan to place Net kiosks in
railway stations 鈥攂ut these do not yet allow users to transfer files to
and from their own computers. Collins admits that a sensible solution might be
for Pit Stop technology to be incorporated into BT鈥檚 kiosks, but stresses that
no deals have been done.
鈥淚f flash memory cards prove to be a popular option we would certainly
incorporate it,鈥� says Les King of BT. 鈥淲e would not close our minds to anything
at this stage.鈥�