The end of the network tether

Whether you want to surf the internet from your bathroom or the top of a bus, wireless networking is going to make it possible very soon.

Wireless networking is a technology most people have yet to discover that they need. Interest will grow with the spread of always-on broadband links, when users realise that they want access all over the home.

You could, of course, hardwire access jacks using ethernet cable, phone extensions, or even the mains loop - indeed there is no point in using wireless where wire will do, and where it is easy to implement. But wiring is a big hassle in most homes and wireless networking prices are expected to fall, albeit not as fast as we would like.

And the wireless web is about far more than getting rid of wires. Like always-on, it gives you a little shiver of insight when you first use it: you know this is the way things have to go. Wireless gives the internet the convenience of a book: you could, at a pinch, use it to surf the net in your bath.

It can also make the internet an inclusive, rather than an exclusive, experience. You don't need to be glued to a screen in some back room.

You can sit with your friends or family surfing as you watch TV, just as you might dip into a paper or book. This is by far the best way to combine the TV and the internet.

Wall Street Journal pundit Walt Mossman points out that there is two-foot information and six-foot information: TV pictures are best viewed from a distance; text is best viewed close up. This is why many web pages designed for the TV tend to look like bad posters.

A laptop viewer can double as a remote control and leaves the TV screen open for distance viewing but still allows you to chase up those TV web links. Others in the room could be browsing elsewhere as you all keep half on eye on the same TV programme, just as today you might all have different reading material on your lap.

All this is a bit too cumbersome at the moment. Notebooks still need to hang off the mains for long stints, regardless of whether they are wireless enabled. The aerials of wireless client cards protrude perilously from PC Card slots, just asking to be broken off; access points are loaded with expensive features targeted at corporates.

But this is beginning to change. Vendors like Dell and Toshiba are fitting aerials into notebook lids, with the silicon tucked away in internal mini-PCI slots. Wi-Fi (802.11b) will come as standard on at least one Toshiba model, and NatSemi has been plugging away for at least two years at the idea of dedicated untethered webpads.

The next stage will be mini-PCI combination cards bundling local wireless networking with third-generation cellular links that will provide fast untethered access wherever you are. To use the industry jargon, there will be a convergence of personal, local and wide area networking - PAN meets LAN meets WAN.

You will be able to surf on the bus, as well as in the bath. This is more than a technology change: it will weave itself into the fabric of our lives.