Ricochet may be a victim of wireless networking competition, an arena that has pitted Bluetooth against IEEE 802.11, HomeRF and other technologies. Beware of overestimating demand, especially in places where there is little infrastructure, Gartner Dataquest chief analyst Tom Starnes warned at a recent Dataquest conference. Bluetooth has some problems to work out, he said.

It seems clear that 802.11b Ethernet has emerged as the wireless network of choice, at least for laptop computers. An ISSCC panel predicted a $50 node two years ago, and its projections seem to be on track.

The trend is partly due to the proliferation of wireless chip sets from Intersil and Agere but is largely based on infrastructure support. Microsoft has built 802.11 support into its XP operating system, and retail outlets like CompUSA are readily selling PCMCIA card transceivers and access terminals.

This is admittedly a PC notebook-centric view of the world, but the killer application remains the ability to open your notebook in a hotel lobby, convention center or airport and cruise the Internet from there. (Reading e-mail is in the same category: As long as you're looking at a simple text message, a small-screen wireless PDA will suffice, but for an e-mail contains a PowerPoint or Excel attachment, you'll want a notebook.)

The technology that dominates in those situations will depend on who gets the contract for installing wireless access points at a hotel chain, a convention center or even a coffee bar. Thus, your PCMCIA insert card may work at a Marriott, but not at the Hilton. Or your IEEE 802.11 card (and MobileStar subscription) may work at the Starbucks on Fillmore, but not at the Peets coffee bar across the street.