NEW-ERA PC CARD DEBUTS WESTLAKE VILLAGE COMPANY EXHIBITS WIRELESS MODEM ALLOWING SPEEDIER ACCESS TO INTERNET.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

A Westlake Village company has created a wireless modem that would, for the first time, allow laptop users to connect to the Internet at speeds faster than a conventional phone modem.

GTRAN introduced the personal-computer card called DotSurfer on Tuesday at Chicago's GlobalXChange exposition, although DotSurfer might not hit the U.S. market for another year. The device has allowed cell phone and laptop users in Korea 64-kilobaud access to the Internet since July, but United States carriers have yet to set up the required frequency.

``It's like you are on the air all the time,'' said Deepak Mehrotra, GTRAN's chief operating officer. ``Our target market is the Web-browsing kind of people.''

The card, which fits into a slot in laptops and hand-held devices, could make mobile Internet access more common, overcoming the slow connection speeds that saddle wireless modem cards widely available now. The company joins a small group of wireless modem providers attempting to break the barrier.

Industry observers, however, said that DotSurfer could be glitch-prone until the digital network it uses becomes as established in the United States as it is in Korea.

Jim Douglas, editor in chief of the technology magazine T3, said the absence of infrastructure could spell trouble for DotSurfer.

``It's typically true to say that hardware technology that reaches the market before the standard is rarely as effective as hardware that is manufactured after the standard is up and running,'' Douglas said.

Mehrotra said GTRAN is trying to persuade wireless service providers like Sprint and Verizon to offer DotSurfer as a wireless option, but the company has no clients yet. The device retails in Korea for about $200.

Sierra Wireless, a British Columbia company, provides Sprint and AT&T with similar wireless modems. Company officials said they are looking into the technology GTRAN is using but are content to keep offering 14.4-kilobaud Internet access and see what other next-generation technologies rise to the top of the heap.

``That's the market that's right for us right now in North America,'' said Sierra Marketing Manager Phoebe Yong.

GTRAN, split into optics and wireless divisions, employs 165 people in several locations worldwide.

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(1 -- 2 -- color) Frank Lee, top executive at GTRAN in Westlake Village, shows the new DotSurfer card allowing cell phone and laptop users to have 64-kilobaud access to the Internet. The 14.4-kilobaud Sierra Wireless AirCard is the chief competition.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer