First came the trim, consumer-friendly BlackBerry Curve 8300. Then came the Wi-Fi enabled BlackBerry 8820. Now there’s the BlackBerry Curve 8320, an impressive PDA phone that combines the best of the previous two models with an impressive bonus: While the 8820 supports Wi-Fi for data only, the 8320 permits you to make voice calls over Wi-Fi too.

The 8320 is smaller, lighter, and curvier than the boxy 8820. Physically, the 8320 is the same as the original Curve. Unlike that device and the 8820, which AT&T offers, the 8320 is available from TMobile; it costs $300 with a two-year contract.

The big news, however, is under the hood: In addition to support for GSM and EDGE networks, the 8320 has Wi-Fi with Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA), a technology that lets you make voice calls over Wi-Fi. It works with T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home service, which allows unlimited calls over Wi-Fi. Though the service is pricey, it could lower your costs by reducing your used cellular voice minutes.

Both the phone and the service by using one of T-Mobile’s HotSpot@ Home wireless routers, manufactured by Linksys. But the 8320 will connect to any 802.11b/g wireless network, so you can use your existing router or even a public hotspot to make calls and surf the Web. T-Mobile says that its router is designed to prioritize voice traffic in order to improve call quality. However, there is no significant improvement when using the T-Mobile router instead of your own Linksys wireless router. Call quality over both wireless networks was the same: decent, just as it was when used the phone over a regular cellular connection. Being able to make calls over Wi-Fi is a great option in areas where cellular service is spotty, though.

For both voice calls and data usage, the 8320 will default to Wi-Fi. Should you leave the network’s range, the phone will switch your call to the cellular network and vice versa.

Like all BlackBerry units, the 8320 is a stellar e-mail device. The 2-megapixel camera (which sports a flash and a 3X digital zoom) took good snapshots. It also has an audio and video player that supports most formats (including MP3, AAC, WMA, WMV, and MP4). The ability to make voice calls over Wi-Fi is very useful. And combined with the 8320’s sleek design and awesome e-mail handling, it makes a winning package.

Mouse, keyboard, printers, thumb drives, and the list of devices demanding a free USB port never ends. But the cable spaghetti surrounding our wired USB hubs looks ugly, so I was happy to test two wireless alternatives: IOGear’s Wireless USB Hub & Adapter and Gefen’s four-port Wireless USB 2.0 Extender.

Both let you attach USB devices to a hub that communicates wirelessly with a receiver plugged into a USB port connected to your PC, but there the similarities end. IOGear’s kit uses the freshly minted Certified Wireless USB standard, based on ultra-wideband wireless technology that offers excellent throughput (up to 250 megabits per second) but limited range. IOGear says up to 30 feet, but based on experience, I’d recommend no more than 10 or 15 feet.

Installing the IOGear product was tricky. I couldn’t use my Vista PC at all (IOGear says that it will make Vista drivers available by soon), and after installing the software on a Windows XP system, I had to wait through driver setup for the receiver and two rounds of driver setup for the hub. Even then nothing worked until I completely disconnected and then reattached both receiver and hub. Once the connection came alive, however, the PC instantly recognized a Sony Reader and a thumb drive I had plugged into the hub.

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Alaska Airlines plans to test a high-speed satellite wireless Internet service on some of its aircraft next year, making it the first U.S. carrier to offer such broadband service.

The broadband service provider relies on geosynchronous satellites to provide broadband to planes anywhere in the world. Customers will use Wi-Fi hotspots located in the aircraft cabin to access the service.

In the past, aircraft broadband services have struggled. Boeing pulled its Connexion option last year after failing to sign enough airlines onto the service. Though support from international airlines was strong, U.S. carriers hesitated to adopt the service following the terrorist attacks of 2001 and the subsequent industry downturn.

Meanwhile, American Airlines has announced plans to test a broadband service in 2008 that will rely on air-to-ground technology, rather than satellites. The test will focus on American’s Boeing 767 planes, primarily on transcontinental routes. Provider Air-Cell says that it will construct cellular towers throughout the United States to beam the signals to aircraft. American will offer its broadband service as an extra-cost option, but the airline won’t announce the exact fee until the service rolls out.

Ready to abandon your landline, but stymied by poor indoor cell reception? Two new technologies, one that lets you make calls over your home wireless network through your cell phone and another that uses tiny, inhome cell towers called femtocells are emerging to fill gaps in cell coverage. Both services make use of your broadband connection to route in-home cell phone calls over the Internet using VoIP, but they let you make and receive calls directly from your mobile handset, with your regular cell number. You can start a call indoors over broadband and continue it outside over cellular, and vice versa. According to early adopters, both systems are transparent to use and both function well.

Your Own Cell Tower
Sprint’s Airave system places a miniature cell tower, called a femtocell, in your house. The service is being tested in Denver, Indianapolis, and Nashville, and is set to roll out to the rest of the country in 2008. The Airave hooks up directly to your broadband router. When in range of the Airave, any Sprint handset will connect automatically to the device, which will then transmit calls over the Internet. As many as three handsets, from a pool of up to 50 registered or authorised phones, can make or receive calls simultaneously on a single femtocell. Additional callers are routed to the nearest cell tower.

Early adopted users report that hand offs between tower and femtocell work well and that call quality is excellent. Sprint charges US$15 per month per line for unlimited calling (US$30 for a family plan), in addition to US$50 for the Airave hardware.

The Home Hotspot
T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home went nationwide this summer. It uses hybrid handsets that switch from a cellular network to Wi-Fi when you move into range of a hotspot. But built-in Wi-Fi isn’t enough, as special circuitry must perform the hand offs between the Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Only a few handsets work with the service: Nokia’s 6086, Samsung’s t409, and RIM’s newest BlackBerry Curve. And though any Wi-Fi router will work with the service, T-Mobile sells optimized models from D-Link and Linksys that promise to provide better voice quality and to extend your handset’s battery life. (Wi-Fi is a big power eater.)

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The Sierra Wireless AirCard 875 gives your laptop the ultimate in international connectivity: I got online in Spain at speeds over 300 kilobits per second, with peaks above 650 Kbps. It works also on Cingular’s HSDPA high-speed network here at home. Beware the monthly fees, though: An international, 100MB data plan costs $139.99 a month.

The topic of municipal wireless has become a real hot button. Many communities are implementing municipal wireless, but they’re doing so for the wrong reasons. And, worse, there’s a dirty little secret about muni-wireless.

Not all municipal wireless efforts are political pork, nor are they failures. The city of Providence, R.I., for example, has done everything right. The city started out with a goal that was clearly defined, achievable, limited in scope, and that improved city services while reducing costs. Municipal wireless was implemented to make the city work more efficiently, and it does.

But a more typical approach by cities is to promise free wireless access to the masses. The reasons given are many, ranging from bridging the digital divide to promoting business in certain areas of a city. Disadvantaged kids will finally be able to do their school research online! Poor families can apply for jobs, get their GEDs or take college courses!

There’s also the picture painted of decaying city centers magically revitalized when people can use their laptops while enjoying the amenities of downtown. No doubt you can already imagine the gentle crunch of the hypodermic needles beneath your feet as you make your way to a bench so you can sit down and compute. That’s assuming you can find a bench not already occupied with a sleeping person, or not already covered by, well, something unmentionable.

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Buffalo’s Nfiniti router has all the features you need to set up a wireless network, including a built-in ADSL router and four Ethernet ports so that you can also make wireless connections if you need to. Unfortunately, the router is let down by its poor Mac support.

The set-up software provided with the Nfiniti is for PCs only, and the ‘Quick Setup’ manual doesn’t mention Macs at all. It does tell you the IP address that should allow you to connect your Mac to the router’s set-up web page, but we couldn’t get this to work on our Mac. Eventually we had to ring Buffalo’s technical support hotline before we were able to get the Nfi niti running properly.

That’s obviously not ideal, so we can’t recommend the Nfi niti to Mac users who aren’t already knowledgeable about network technology.

The Nfiniti router is primarily aimed at PC users.