Wireless communication is becoming more and more prevalent in the day to day consumer services offered by various vendors such as the three neighborhood Starbucks® closest to you, which have invested deeply in store internet infrastructure to once again justify their exorbitant cost of coffee and perhaps keep you in their store long enough for you to shell out additional monies to their cause. One of the newer areas that has show an increase in WiFi hotspot growth, surprisingly is the Trucking and Transportation industries. From California to Virginia reports are popping up of new WiFi hotspots crossing the nation, keeping logged on, wherever you may go. Not convinced? simply running a Google search will render several thousand reports. David Coursey of eWeek has even written up a review of the WiFi connections provided by the Flying J Travel Plazas (a truck stop) and cites them as being a third less expensive for their internet connections as compared to the over-zealous coffee makers from Seattle, but then again, so is their coffee.

Read the eWeek Article

Even major manufactures, such as Ford's Lincoln division have started the WiFi integration with some of their vehicles in preparation for the world of tomorrow. Earlier this year Lincoln outfitted a 2004 Aviator with their prototype WiFi service and were able to demonstrate it's capabilities from a table within (can you guess?) a WiFi enabled Starbucks store by playing MP3s from a laptop in the store on the Radio in the SUV. Ford and Delphi have been working on this concept for well over a year now but expect that the added WiFi functionality shouldn't be more than a couple hundred dollars added to the overall vehicle cost, once it's debuted.

Vehicle mounted computers, which have been around for a while, are becoming more and more popular and much easier to find. Latest renditions of these computers can support anywhere from Windows CE to XP and have advanced options such as 802.11b/g Wireless, Bluetooth support TFT Touch Screens.

Check out the Intermec CV60 for more info.




Even though most of these technologies seem somewhat limited, you can surely expect for the technology to get much better as demand grows and the industry evolves. Besides, we can't think of anything better than being able to surf truckblog.com, from your truck.