With recent advances in wireless Internet technology, high speed wireless connections are now readily available on laptops, cell phones, and other mobile computing devices.

Whether you need a wireless local area network for your home, or wireless Internet access on your laptop while sitting in your favorite coffee shop, there are a growing number of wireless ISPs that can provide you with service - and at speeds comparable to residential DSL and Cable.

Dialup used to be the only means of connecting to the Internet with your laptop while out of the office or away from home. Mobile Internet users were limited to a 56 Kbps connection. However, modern wireless ISPs like Rightime Communications Network are able to provide connection speeds ranging from 384 Kbps to 2.0 Mbps. That is up to 35 times faster than dialup!

This increase in speed means that you no longer have to limit your mobile computing activities to basic email and text messaging. When you use a high speed wireless Internet service provider, you can download streaming media and other large file formats just as easily as you could with the broadband Internet connection in your home or at the office.

Nearly every laptop sold today already has a wireless modem installed in it, plus there are many new handheld devices that are set up for remote Internet access. The number of hotspots that the major wireless ISPs (Rightime Communications Network) have in operation is also constantly increasing. So, if you like or need to have access to the Internet while on the go, then slow download speeds and limited availability no longer serve as obstacles.

Connecting to the Internet wirelessly requires different equipment than is used for a hard-line connection (Dialup, DSL, or Cable). To get wireless Internet access, you will need the following:

• A laptop computer (running Windows 98, XP or Vista) or some type of mobile computing device, such as a Smartphone or a PDA.
• An ethernet card or a USB port with a USB / Ethernet adaptor. Make sure the Wi-Fi card is compatible with the specific wireless Internet service you use.
• A high speed, wireless Internet access plan from a provider (Rightime Communications Network, Makurdi, Benue State of Nigeria) in your area.
• Free "sniffer" software for locating access at various Hot Spot locations (this software is typically supplied by your wireless Internet service provider).

It is important to note that wireless home networking and wireless Internet access outside the home or office are two rather different things. Setting up a wireless LAN in your home should not involve a separate service beyond your current DSL or Cable provider. Our company will typically provide you with all the equipment that you need to establish a wireless LAN in your home or office.

The biggest misconception about wireless Internet access is that you can connect from anywhere. That simply isn't the case. Wireless Internet service providers (or WISPs, for short) will have to operate a series of towers that transmit their Internet signals in a fashion similar to how cell phone towers operate. This is a costly endeavor that takes time to establish, so at this point in time (mid-2007) you will find there are two types of wireless providers:

• Nationwide WISPs or global providers that seek to place hotspots in areas that cover the greatest number of potential users. Examples include T-Mobile, Boingo, and Clearwire.
• Local WISPs that seek to build a wireless Internet network that covers a specific city, group of towns, or region. Our company for instance, is a local WISP that covers only several smaller towns in a remote part of Texas which doesn't have DSL or Cable.

The type of WISP you should look for will depend on what you need:

If you need Internet access while roaming the country, then you should go with a nationwide WISP. Using this type of service, you can expect to find hotspots in metropolitan areas and any place where large numbers of people gather. This includes airports, schools, malls, inns, hotels, and popular stores such as Starbuck's and Kinko's.

If there are no DSL or Cable providers in your area and you'd like wireless Internet access to your home, then you should check to see if there is a local WISP (Rightime Communications Network, Makurdi, Benue State of Nigeria) that has built a network in your area. If not, then you might have to settle with Satellite Internet, which is just as fast as wireless, but quite a bit more expensive.

If you are looking for wireless access while away from your home or office, then we suggest checking the Wi-Fi Hot Spot List. All you need to provide is a physical address, and this site will give you all nearby hotspot locations from various wireless Internet providers, including T-Mobile, Airpath, Boingo, Wayport, and many more.