World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
The laptop frontier is no more. It used to separate Europe into two very unequal parts. One was composed of the Continent's settled reaches, where one could lug a laptop, be reachable by e-mail and remain fully able to work. The other was the mountain ranges and other inaccessible areas without telephone jacks - or even electricity. This was where one could safely go on vacation.
The mobile phone, with its ever-greater reach and sophisticated service, has erased this frontier. The result: There are no more ''no-work zones'' left in Europe.
It got to be one of the rituals of my yearly late-July week in the heights of the …tzal Alps. This glacier-clad mountain range straddles the border between Italy and Austria. My days there were spent traversing the glaciers and climbing the 3,000 meter (9,900 foot) peaks rising above them.
My early evenings were spent standing in front of the Braunschweiger Hütte, or climbers' inn, bawling instructions and advice into my cellphone. The object of my attentions was my trusty assistant, Frank De Gasperi, who was holding down the fort in my office in Munich. Frank spent much of his time composing and sending short messages to my phone, whose display flashed them at me any time I made the mistake of checking my phone for the latest developments at work. The messages involved changes in articles ordered by editors, requests for information and other standard fare of a business journalist's life.
Our connection was great, even though the inn was 2,800 meters up a mountainside in the midst of snowy remote wastes, perhaps 60 kilometers (35 miles) from any decent-sized town. But there are a number of ski resorts in the mountains, and their roofs serve as relay stations for Austria's national mobile networks.
Nor was I alone. Both our guide, Harald Assinger, and other climbers spent a goodly portion of their days transacting business, willingly or not, via the cellphones clamped to their ears.
Same story, a few weeks later. I mobile-phoned with my editors up until the last seconds before beginning what is supposedly the most difficult trek in Germany's section of the Alps. It was probably just as well - I was too busy relaying information to get nervous.
Along with the mountains, another no-work zone has disappeared in Europe: airplane cabins. Lufthansa, like a number of other carriers, has authorized the use of laptops once the aircraft has reached cruising altitude. Mobile telephones are, thankfully enough, still not allowed - although there is a move to extend the use of skyphones from intercontinental to regional flights.
When that day comes, my airborne trips will unfold just like my train journeys: Sit down, plug in laptop (today's advanced trains have seat-side electric sockets), start typing and wait for my cellphone to ring. So much for the romance of travel.
Terry Swartzberg