Ridhwansyah [dot] Com

There’s something to be said about the importance of staying connected while you’re on the road, especially if you’re traveling for business. Whether it’s keeping in touch with loved ones or finding out the latest details of crucial meetings and presentations, there’s a reason that business travelers seem to have their cell phones attached to their ears until seconds before the plane departs. After all, when you’re out of the office, staying connected is the only thing you can do to keep up to date. And that can mean big success–or bigger failure–at crucial conferences and meetings.

But the trouble with business travel isn’t keeping in touch on your phone; cell phones are actually extremely reliable devices and work in most areas, except for remote regions where you wouldn’t be planning a conference, anyway. No, the trouble comes when the internet enters the equation. Especially, unfortunately, in the case of hotels and their desire to provide wireless internet.

In most business hotels in Dallas and Chicago, wireless is a given. It is one of the reasons that business travelers choose an establishment. After all, no one wants to get off of the plane, get onto a train, and check into a hotel, only to traipse right back out to find the nearest place to get online. Business travelers rely on these in-room connections because they need to do their work in the room. Whether it’s having a pre-conference call conference call or researching last pieces of data for a presentation, there is a lot to get done.

Only sometimes, it just doesn’t seem to work out with wireless internet. Either the signal keeps dropping, or it doesn’t even reach your room to begin with. Calling down to the front desk often does nothing, because what more can an employee really do than just unplug the router and hope that the signal is stronger the next time? It’s a sticky situation, and one that has resulted in more than one frantic run to a 24-hour Kinko’s, at the cost of precious beauty sleep.

For business travelers who are in need of a better option, though, the time has finally arrived for something that is actually an improvement. Using the technology of towers, instead of the small and limited power of a personal router, WiMax is able to provide a network that offers fast internet no matter where you go. With expansion to major cities including Las Vegas, Chicago, Portland, and Dallas, a wider area is being covered now than ever before. This means that if you’re on the road for business, chances are you are within 30 miles of one of the towers. And this means that you can get right online.

The reason that WiMax is so successful is that it brings together two effective forms of technology and makes them work for a purpose that anyone can identify with. After all, you don’t have to keep turning your cell phone on and off for it to pick up a network, nor do you end up waving it out of your hotel room in frustration. The network is based entirely on the way that cell phone companies are able to provide service, but with an eye for what is needed for anyone who does business–or gets online–from multiple locations. And with more and more people opting for the internet on the go, it makes sense that a company finally realized a fast speed and a network that travels where you do is far more important than any other type of bell or whistle that makes the internet look new while actually accomplishing nothing.

Whether it’s for a conference or a big convention, it seems that Philadelphia is back in the game as a major player in the world of cities that have big business and small business alike planning their events. Not to be outdone, Raleigh continues to be hugely popular for conventions. With its very privileged spot right in the heart of the growing North Carolina business district, it’s no wonder that everyone from major furniture conferences to more tech-oriented yearly meetings take place in Raleigh.

For business travelers who are on the road in either Philadelphia and Raleigh, there can be a bit of a daily grind to deal with while traveling for work. After all, it is common knowledge that most people on the road for work end up spending half of the day trying to find a reliable wireless internet connection. Because of the fact that  so many hotels promise wireless and then the network is cutting out at best or nonexistent at worst, business travelers are well-accustomed to spending part of their time on the road trying to figure out whether or not they are going to be heading to Kinko’s or simply trying to find a Starbucks where there might be a Wi-Fi connection.

But now in Philadelphia, Raleigh, and countless other cities around the country, there is a new method in getting online that puts your old wireless internet connections to shame. This time around, the wireless signal is coming from towers that manage to cover miles, rather than routers that only cover a few different feet. And because of this, you don’t have to worry about finding a single place to plug in your laptop when it’s time to get online. Instead, you can take advantage of the fact that with WiMax, there is a truly wireless, truly mobile way for getting online.

Understanding how this works might be initially confusing for business people and regular travelers alike, but it should make sense after thinking about it more in terms of how your cell phone is able to connect immediately. With this new version of wireless, consider your laptop the cell phone, and the network in place will make more sense. Because it is able to transmit a signal over a wider area, and because towers are allowed to bounce signal from one to the other, leading to a larger area of coverage, it makes sense that that you have to do to get online is simply turn on your computer. After all, when you take your cell phone on the road, you don’t have to turn it back on again and re-configure a network when your plane touches down in Philly or Raleigh: the network does that for you.

So if you’re looking for a better way to surf the internet or get last-minute work done while you travel for business, look no further than the world of WiMax. Finally, there has been a technology that actually takes the internet a step forward, rather than pretending to do so. And whether you are getting online for serious business or simply want to check in with loved ones at home, it makes a lot of sense to get on board now and start seeing the advantages immediately.