Could you, would you Web surf in a car? Technology will let you

Connecting to the Internet from just about anywhere will get easier in about a year thanks to new technologies being developed by the wireless communications industry.

I saw a live demonstration of Long Term Evolution (LTE) during a cruise around the Las Vegas Convention Center in a customized van outfitted with batteries, cables and racks of blinking boxes. That gear will all be reduced to fit snugly inside a hand-held case by the time LTE hits the market about this time next year, Motorola Inc. officials say.

We did a couple of spins around a half-mile circuit that fell within the temporary LTE network set up by Motorola engineers in the weeks before the CTIA: The Wireless Association convention, which ran through Friday. All eyes in the rear of the van were fixed on three monitors mounted behind the driver's seat. One screen showed a live stream in high-definition of the latest "Desperate Housewives" episode from abc.com; another showed a map of the network and the signal strength from each of the two LTE transmitters; the third showed which transmitters the vehicle was using at the time.

"What LTE and WiMax are bringing to the market is a broadband experience injected into life and making it personal," said Rick Keith, Motorola's director for global strategy.

Keith said one difference between WiMax and LTE is the immediacy of the connection. With LTE, there's no latency, or delay, between a click of a mouse and the response on the screen across the network. That means a lot to gamers (people who play multiplayer games across the Internet), as their actions (shooting, running, firing, etc ... ) will happen instantly on their screens.

Another difference between WiMax and LTE is the customer, as WiMax is being developed by traditional mobile companies like Sprint to serve wireless-data customers. Think of the wireless modem devices used to connect laptops to the Internet.

"WiMax is deploying like hotcakes in the United States," Keith said. "Clearwire is launching two more cities this month -- Portland (Ore.) and Baltimore -- and it's already all WiMax in Chicago."

LTE is being developed as the technology that will reach most mobile customers. Those with a voice and data plans who expect a cellular experience will be moving to LTE, he said.

"Vodafone, Verizon, T-Mobile and Orange will all go LTE," Keith said.

"Move this out to 2012 or 2013 and a couple of things will probably occur. We'll see gains on both technologies and services offered by ISPs (Internet service providers) and a lot of really cool choices. Both technologies will survive. It's taken people a while to get over the fact this is not a boxing match of WiMax over LTE. I assure you both technologies are going to do just fine."

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