Picture courtesy of Randy Spencer.
Portable computer users who live on the west coast of the United States, or are associated with certain US schools, may have a chance to use an early version of the next phase of wireless data communications: A Ricochet wireless modem from Metricom.
The Ricochet modem attached to a Psion Series 3a Palmtop computer.
Picture courtesy of Randy Spencer.
The box the Ricochet arrived in is about the size of an external five inch drive. Inside that box was the modem itself, a pair of antennas, a serial cable, an AC adapter, spare backup disks, stickers with the Ricochet service number on them, Velcro to stick the modem to your laptop, and manuals and application notes for the Ricochet and those various pieces of software.
The Ricochet itself is quite a bit smaller than that box. In fact, it's about the same size, but not the same shape, as the S3a. It weighs 260 grams, and is 62 mm x 197 mm x 22 mm. It has a gloss black finish, with a Ricochet logo on top and an information label-FCC, serial and model numbers- on the bottom. One end of the box contains the custom Ricochet battery; the other has connectors for the antenna, serial line and AC power.
When I ordered the modem, you could ask for an optional high gain antenna. This is bigger and bulkier than the standard antenna, but provides better reception.
The modem arrived with little or no charge in the battery. The AC adapter will charge the unit while it's in use, so this didn't prevent me from using it immediately. I had previously grabbed a terminal emulator from the net, so I plugged in the AC adapter, serial line and antenna (all of which are impossible to plug in wrong), connected it to my Psion palmtop, and fired up the terminal emulator.
The package I ordered included Metricom's internet service. Since that uses PPP and I don't have a TCP/PPP stack for the Psion, this did me no good. However, the package I ordered included the ability to dial out to all the area codes in the Metricom coverage area and any toll-free numbers.
The modem is Hayes compatible with extensions for dealing with the wireless environment. Since all the terminal emulators worked with Hayes modems, they all worked out of the box. I spent a couple of hours connecting to several dial-in services using all the terminal emulators I could find on the net. During that period, the Ricochet never hiccuped; it worked well and quietly. I wish could say the same for the terminal emulators.
I spent most of the next month unable to access my desktop box, and used the Psion and Ricochet for checking mail, surfing the web, and similar things every day, usually for an hour or more. It was very reliable, though performance varied. In particular, there were infrequent times when the time to echo a character was long enough to make the system unusable. On one occasion, the modem would not keep a connection open. With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect that this was because there was almost no charge on the battery.
At the end of that month, I moved into a new house that had no other network connection. For the next month, I used the Ricochet on my desktop box, which is normally on-line 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The Ricochet proved unsuited to this. In particular, the line would drop but the modem would not realize it, so the system would not reconnect to the ISP.
Finally, I picked up a second modem and attached it to my desktop box. This allows me to dial directly into my systems at home from anywhere in the Metricom coverage area, and costs less than a second phone line would. Setting this up was identical to setting up a wired modem for dialin service. Using nfsc as a terminal emulator and p3nfsd on the remote end for file transfer services is very workable. The only problem caused by the modem was when I let the battery run down on the roaming modem while it connected. The base modem never realized that the connection dropped, so I would not have been able to reconnect if I had tried after the battery died.
Other users I've talked to have reported that the modem does not roam well, if at all. It seems as if the modem does not connect to new repeaters while you are moving until the old ones are out of range, or nearly so. So performance drops off as you move, possibly to the point of losing the connection.
There are a number of interesting things you can do with Ricochet modems other than dial into other services. It's possible to configure a modem to talk to a phone line so you can have your own dialout service, to have two of them talking directly to each other, or to hang a modem on a server of your own to dial into.
This information is all current at the time of this writing. It is, of course, subject to change. See the Ricochet site for current information.
You can buy a Ricochet modem outright for US $599. This does not include air time on the Metricom network, so you need to buy two to make use of them.
If you sign a service agreement for 12 months you can buy the modem for US $299.
You can rent the modem for US $10 a month, and get theft and loss insurance for US $3.95 a month.
Basic Service - the PPP connection to an ISP and a POP mail box - is US $29.95 a month. You can add the ability to dial out for US $5 a month. You can get that plus the ability to dial in from outside the service area, use CC:mail and send faxes for US $10 a month.
Note that there are NO per-minute charges for using either the modem or the service. This is a real advantage over a cellular phone and portable modem.
Currently, the Metricom public network is only available in the San Francisco, California; Seattle, Washington; Corvallis and Eugene, Oregon areas. If you are attending the University of Miami, Austin College, or a number of universities in or close to the public coverage area, they have a private network that you can use.
In general, the modem is well worth its costs. It's not something I'm going to carry with me all the time, but it will probably be close by most of the time. While it's acceptable using a terminal emulator, it should be better than acceptable when used with transaction processing protocols like the World Wide Web.
The internet service they provide is nearly useless, except for the PPP connection. In the local area, you can buy this kind of account for a few dollars a month. Since most people want more than just email and PPP (shell access, space to put pages on the World Wide Web, or for public FTP being common), they will need another account. The Ricochet modem allows mobile access to that account over the Metricom network. The actual pricing is reasonable. The monthly fees are similar to the monthly fees for cellular service, except there is no charge for air time. If you don't need a cellular phone for other reasons, this makes an excellent alternative to a cell phone and portable modem combination. Even if you do have a cellular phone, the flat rate service may make the Ricochet less expensive than air time on the cellular service.
All in all, I'm both impressed and happy, and would recommend that anyone who is in an area with Ricochet coverage try one.