September 17, 1989

INTERNET WHEREVER HE GOES: Soon — maybe even at Apple Computer’s laptop computer rollout later this week — Motorola will announce a cellular network service for laptop computer users, so they can access networks and transmit data via radio frequencies as easily as they chat on their cellular phones.

I don’t know a lot about it, but Motorola’s said to be spending big bucks on the new service, and will definitely pass on the cost to subscribers.

But here’s some news I like much better: some local ham radio types have developed a hardware-software combo that does much the same thing for less than $400 (and no usage fee).

One is Dewayne Hendricks of Fremont, whose software will be demonstrated during Apple’’s laptop wing-ding. He calls the concept “tetherless access,” and today it allows him 24-hour access to the popular Internet network using nothing more than his computer, a “radio modem” and the public domain TCP/IP network software he’’s written. “It’s just like hooking up to a phone line,” he says.

“All our stuff is very cheap,” adds Hendricks. “We believe you should be able to send data at high speed for low cost.” Radio modems running at 1200 bits per second, 9600 bps and a prototype speed demon that links with existing Appletalk local-area networks are up and running.

Hendricks worked on the project with Doug Thom and Mike Chepponis, who both work at Apple. Thom is president of Apple’s amateur radio club, and Chepponis is a packet radio expert who’s been working on the radio modem hardware.

There are two drawbacks to the cheaper system: one, you have to be a licensed ham operator to use it, since it transmits on assigned ham frequencies. And two, ham radio is reserved for recreational use only — no business transactions allowed.

Hendricks’ article on the technology will run in the October issue of the ham magazine ”73. He’’s also presenting three papers at the American Radio Relay League’’s Computer Networking Conference, on Saturday, Oct. 7, in Colorado Springs.

IT’S A START: You wouldn’t think Taj Hargey’s cause would be a hard sell. Hargey, a South African Indian considered “black” by his country’s standards, wants to establish the first independent, black-owned newspaper in South Africa — dedicated to “non-racism, social justice and democratic pluralism.”

He came to the Bay Area three months ago to ask for gifts of computers, typesetting equipment and software. Everyone he talked to — not a paltry list — said no, saying a South African project was too political.

But the tide is turning. Last week, Hargey says he got an initial donation of equipment from Apple, software from Claris, and a bunch of network hardware and software from Berkeley-based Farallon Computing. And wonder of wonders, Seybold Seminars donated a booth space to Hargey’s Open House Society at next week’s big-time Seybold Computer Publishing Conference at Moscone Center. “We’re even strategically placed just opposite of IBM,” says a delighted Hargey. “So we’ll get a lot of foot traffic. We’re going to hang a banner that says, “Freedom for South Africa Starts Here.”

He still has a long list of equipment he needs to get the paper published. You can call Hargey at (415) 655-3838.

“THE NETWORK”S DOWN”: At last week’s NetWorld ‘89, Santa Clara-based consulting firm Infonetics released “The Real Cost of LAN Downtime.” The study, commissioned by Network General Corp., a LAN diagnostics vendor in Mountain View, shows that LANs in Fortune 500-sized companies are disabled about 6 percent of the time, costing each firm about $3.5 million a year in lost productivity.

Worse yet, especially from Network General’s point of view, these companies tend to throw money at the problem — some $600,000 per company per year — in the form of upgrades, which only makes the network move more information faster rather than solving problems.

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE … DALLAS? The San Jose Mercury News is losing another high-tech reporter. Jim Bartimo turned down a job from the Los Angeles Times to work in Business Week’s Dallas bureau. Starting in October, you’ll see his byline on small, unimportant stories about Sematech, Texas Instruments and Tandy Corp., and maybe even the supercollider.

PAST IMPERFECT: No communication system is perfect, my ears included. In last week’s item on ASIC Technology & News, publisher Nancy Magoun actually said “Dave and Ruth Norman” were private investors, and I heard “Dave and Rick.” Mea culpa.