The future will be wireless

By VIKKI BLAND

At a popular parenting seminar, several hundred mums and dads jostled like kids at a birthday tea table to get first dibs on recommended books and CDs. They stood impatiently in line waiting for their credit card transactions to be manually processed through a zip-zap machine.

As the seminar restarted, some grumbling mums and dads abandoned their purchases, prompting the event organiser to lament, "if only we'd had a wireless eftpos terminal".

The seminar organiser learned the hard way that today's consumers and employees live, work and communicate in a world where time is money and, (as the Warehouse reminds us), time is the best thing you can spend on your children.

Extrapolated for retailers, consumers expect to pay for goods and services fast, electronically, and are unlikely to be carrying the right amount of cash.

But it isn't only retailers on the move who can benefit from working wirelessly with mobile devices and wireless technologies.

In an interview with New Zealand Business magazine last December, Wellington glazier Mike's Glass described how wireless technology had led to a 30 per cent increase in business productivity. It brought improvements in cash flow, turnover, and customer service, and reduced administrative time and errors.

Managing director Mike Anders said before working wirelessly, Mike's Glass faxed job lists to glaziers then waited for handwritten job notes to be faxed back.

"The double handling caused mistakes, we couldn't tell if we needed to place an order for a customer til the end of the day, and we didn't know where the glaziers were or whether they could take on extra work," Anders said.

So using a hosted service application, smart phones and a mobile data connection, Mike's Glass began to dispatch jobs and send and receive job information electronically. This included advice on whether glaziers were running early or late, and billing information later imported into company financial software.

South Island-based Amalgamated Food Distributors (AFD) also implemented a wireless sales forcelast year, giving its mobile sales force access to the business network through smart phones, PDAs and an automated sales order application.

In February, AFD managing director David Scurr told New Zealand Business magazine wireless connectivity had made AFD's business "hugely" cost effective.

"We have been able to take a staff member out of our office as a direct result," he said.

Hosted wireless services and tailored industry applications such as those used by Mike's Glass and AFD cost around $250 a month for each user through telecommunications providers or partners.

Like many national companies, AFD and Mike's Glass use Telecom's Mobile Jetstream mobile data service, while exporters and businesses with international travellers prefer the global roaming strength of Vodafone's rival GPRS service.

However, working wirelessly is not restricted to cellular network connections (those used by mobile phones). In addition to "fixed" wireless connections which convey data between buildings or geographically disperse offices, local area radio spectrum with technology standards can also be used for wireless connection.

The most common of these standards is called WiFi and WiFi coverage areas (called "hot spots") can be established almost anywhere. They are commonly present in offices and buildings, central business districts, leisure areas such as cafes and restaurants, and transit areas in airports and railway stations.

Unfortunately, public radio spectrum transmissions are relatively easy to intercept for dedicated hackers, so new, more secure technology standards are constantly being developed. Despite this, many companies allow their mobile employees to use WiFi only if network access is through a secure and private internet area known as a VPN or Virtual Private Network.

So how well is working wirelessly taking off? Internationally, analysts are predicting a positive future for wireless. The US Census Bureau predicts 40 per cent of all workers will use wireless technologies to perform a significant part of their job outside the office within 30 months. Research firm IDC predicts the global number of small and medium businesses operating a wireless local area network will increase from 10 per cent to about 25 per cent by the end of this year.

In New Zealand, evidence of businesses working wirelessly (beyond the use of mobile phones) is still largely anecdotal and dependant on wireless users sharing their still early experiences.

As testimony to this, we contacted four wireless providers for new customer stories to add to this article. While the deadline was a little tight, three promised customer stories failed to eventuate.

Where wired technologies are well established, demanded, and often a given, working wirelessly in New Zealand is clearly still evolving and maturing.

But the cost, awareness and security issues of working wirelessly will eventually either be solved or outweighed by the business benefits the technology affords.