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New PCMCIA for Cellular Use by Sierra Wireless

Sierra Wireless` released a new line of products titled AirCards. The AirCards line will be a line of PCMCIA cards targeted to cellular network providers, who in turn offer them to their customers allowing those customers to access the data capabilities of their wireless, cellular networks. The AirCards themselves are offered in several flavors, supporting multiple networking topologies from GSM/GPRS through CDMA 1xEV-DO (and, in the newest offering EV-DO Rev. A) in a PCMCIA Type II Card form factor. All versions from Windows 98SE and up are supported in all cards, with NT additionally supported in the 775 and higher numbered cards and Windows CE and Pocket PC supported on the 775 itself. 3rd party drivers are available for Mac OS X and Linux on the 775 and (OS X only) 580 cards.

Sierra Wireless offers several modals of their AirCards. Here are the specs for the two of them. The 580: Operating in the 1900Mhz band over CDMA 1xEV-DO networks. Maximum downlink/uplink speeds are listed at 2.4 Mb/sec and 153 Kb/sec respectively (typical connection speeds are 400-700K down and 40-80K up). The 580 is inserted into a 32-bit CardBus slot. A different modal is the 775: A quad-band (850/900/1800/1900 Mhz) card for GSM/GPRS and EDGE networks. Maximum downlink/uplink speeds are listed at 216 Kb/sec (each) with typical connection speeds ranging from 100-130 Kb/sec. The 775 features true network interface card operation plus dial-up networking (DUN) modes.

All cards feature options such as vendor`s Watcher Software, which provides configuration and monitoring capabilities, SMS messaging capabilities, an SDK for developers, and an optional external antenna. Additionally, the vendor notes the cards are compatible with all major instant messaging, E-mail, PIM, and VPN applications.