Better solution for later: Upgrade your mobile wireless card or notebook computer altogether. If your notebook has a few years on it, you're probably running with an old-school wireless card that uses 802.11b technology. New technology - like the industry's widely used 802.11g Wi-Fi standard and the even faster Dell Wireless 1500 Draft 802.11n dual-band wireless card - is up to five times faster and can provide twice the range4 of 802.11g when used with Draft 11n routers with Intensi-fiTM technology. A new wireless card is an extremely affordable way to kick up your connection. Or opt for a newer notebook that is equipped with the latest Wi-Fi technology built in, so you don't have to deal with external cards that can break or get lost in the shuffle.

Best solution for later: Stop chasing hotspots. Go with mobile broadband. Cellular network providers are building single, interconnected networks that provide nationwide Wi-Fi coverage. This technology is known as Wireless WAN (WWAN) or mobile broadband. This development is especially important because it can enable business travelers to access the Internet virtually anywhere, directly from their notebook computers using a WWAN card rather than having to find a public hotspot and pay for access each time.

Problem: The signal strength is just fine, but nothing happens when you go to check your e-mail.

Solution: One solution could be that you need to first open your Web browser. After powering up your computer and making sure you're connected to the Wi-Fi network (to do this check the wireless client utility such as Windows Wireless Zero Config, the Intel Client Manager or Broadcom utility in your system tray) you may be able to check your e-mail simply by clicking on your e-mail icon to open the e-mail application or by opening up your Internet browser and opening your Web-based e-mail application.

But, more often than not, you'll need to take a couple of other simple steps. That's because many commercial hotspots, like the ones in airports and hotel lobbies, require you to sign on to their wireless networks, which you can only do in a Web browser. After you select the appropriate wireless network in your wireless client utility, click on your Web browser icon and the Wi-Fi network providers' sign-in page should automatically appear. When it does, you may need to create a username and password, as well as enter your credit card information. However, some free public hotspots - like the ones in popular coffee shop chains - don't require you to do anything but open your browser to get on their networks.

Or the problem could be that you need to change your default home page (the page that first appears when you open your Web browser). If the page is blank or you get a message that reads "Page Cannot Be Displayed" the Wi-Fi service providers' sign-in page may not appear when you launch the browser. Luckily, this is a fairly common problem and easy to fix. Simply go to a Web site you like - www.google.co.uk or www.yahoo.co.uk are among the most popular default home pages - close your browser and re-launch it. This time, the sign-in page should appear when you launch your browser.

Problem: You're connected, but it's slow.

Solution: Chances are, you're out of range of the wireless access point. The solution? Change your location. Just as you sometimes lose service on your cellular phone, you can sometimes be out of range of the wireless access point. This can slow down your connection or block it out altogether.

Solution: It's just around the corner. From coffee houses to hotel lobbies, there's no shortage of Wi-Fi network access points. Unfortunately, there's also no shortage of roaming agreements between public hotspot providers. As a result, each hotspot usually comes with its own sign-up procedure. This means that if you are traveling you may need one hotspot account to access the company network from one airport lounge, another account to get online from a cafe, and yet another account to update a database from a hotel.

For many road warriors, this process can be a time-draining hassle. With mobile broadband, that hassle is eliminated. As mobile broadband gains in popularity, look for improved coverage through roaming agreements similar to those currently seen in the cellular phone industry, and "smart" phones and PDAs that use both cellular and mobile broadband networks. In the very near future, you'll have the ability, for example, to get an updated proposal by calling your office over a cellular link, and then downloading the new document over a mobile broadband connection - all with just one smart device.