Globe-trotting customers of Dell can use startup Wayport's wireless services for free until April

Dell Computer is cozying up with a startup to provide travellers with wireless Internet access.

On Wednesday, Dell and four-year-old Wayport will announce a cross-marketing arrangement for selling notebooks enabled for wireless networking and Wayport's service that permits consumers to make wireless notebook connections in wired hotel lobbies or airports.

Under the deal, Dell customers get to use Wayport's service for free until 31 March. While Dell is positioning the arrangement as exclusive, analysts and Wayport say that the deal is available to anyone who owns a notebook.

"Wayport will cut deals with anybody," Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney said. "It would be suicide for them to cut an exclusive deal with Dell."

Still, Greg Latson, Wayport's director of membership marketing, emphasised that there will be Dell-specific promotions in the future. After the free trial period, for instance, Dell notebook owners can qualify for three free connections.

The marketing arrangement is particularly important to Wayport, which relies on notebook makers as a means of selling its services.

"This has become a form of distribution for us in a sense," Latson said. "We're more interested in the Dells of the world selling our product, rather than us going out and selling it ourselves."

Wayport stands to benefit from Dell's marketing clout. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell captured 25 percent of the US notebook market in the fourth quarter, according to Dataquest.

Austin, Texas-based Wayport offers wireless access in 39 states through major hotels and three airports: Austin, Dallas and Seattle. The company plans to add the airport in San Jose, California, to the roster within 45 days.

To use the service, travelers must use portables enabled with 802.11B wireless networking, which allows access to corporate networks or the Internet at speeds of up to 11 megabits per second. Apple, Compaq, Dell, IBM, Micron and Toshiba are among the notebook makers offering 802.11B.

Market researcher Cahners In-Stat Group forecasts the wireless networking market will grow to $2.2bn in 2004 from just $771mn in 1999.

Dell would not reveal how many notebooks it sells that are enabled for wireless networking. But Dell's Latitude C600, which features an integrated wireless antenna, makes up about 60 percent of Dell's corporate notebook sales. The company also sells 802.11B wireless LAN cards and other accessories under the TrueMobile brand.

Dataquest on Monday released a report looking at the state of wireless networking. In a survey of 200 technology managers with midsize to larger companies, the market researcher found that 21 percent use wireless LANs and 50 percent had plans to use the technology.

Two-thirds of the companies with wireless LANs had adopted 802.11B vs. competing standards, such as HomeRF and HyperLAN2, according to Dataquest.

Dataquest also predicts that 50 percent of the corporations will adopt wireless networking by the second half of 2002, with hotels and convention centres hitting the same level of penetration by the first half of 2003. Restaurants and shopping centres will reach similar levels in second half of 2003 and first half of 2004, respectively.

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