Wireless technology advances get ready for debut; soon cellular phone users can get faxes, use modems.

A pair of Los Angeles County-based companies are betting on the future of cellular technology to cash in big. A new wireless technology, based on cellular technology, is about to explode, according to industry sources.

Cellular Digital Packet Data, CDPD for short, uses the same technology which allows you to talk on a cellular phone from your favorite restaurant.

But now, while you chat on the cellular phone you will also be able to receive faxes or to scout the Internet from that same restaurant, without having to plug in any cords.

CDPD does exist to a small extent, but those in the wireless industry expect it to grow in widespread popularity much in the same fashion that cellular phones became accepted quickly.

If all the expectations of those on the forefront of telecommunications technology come true, a pair of local companies stand to gain from the CDPD revolution. They are Santa Monica-based Retix and Calabasas-based Xircom Inc.

Retix is a manufacture of computer networking software that is now developing something called a "router."

Retix's software, called Open Systems Interconnect, has been used widely in telecommunications networks and has been well-liked, according to Noel Lindsay, an analyst with San Francisco-based Hambrecht & Quist, an investment banking firm.

Korea Mobile Telecom, the largest cellular provider in Korea, has selected Retix to supply CDPD products for a mobile data network trial in that country. KMT has purchased Retix routers and plans to utilize Retix's CDPD application software for its network application and support services.

The Korean field test is the first of its kind outside of North America. KMT is the largest cellular provider in Korea and provides service to more than 500,000 cellular customers.

Here in the United States, Retix can brag that it claims as customers some of the heaviest hitters in the American cellular market. Retix's routers and CDPD application software are used by McCaw Cellular Communications, the largest cellular provider in the country, and AirTouch, formerly PacTel Cellular.

Despite the news regarding the KMT purchase of Retix equipment, Lindsay said the company has been struggling. It recently announced quarterly net losses of $4.39 million or 25 cents per share.

Few on Wall Street expected such a poor showing, said Lindsay, who expected to see losses of only about 10 cents per share. Lindsay added that while the results were surprising, the losses were mainly due to restructuring charges.

Xircom, a company known for developing hardware for local area networks, introduced a wide area wireless products division last November. Xircom plans to develop both software and hardware to be used in a CDPD environment.

Tim Blaney, senior director of the wireless division, said that Xircom's goal is to develop hardware and software products that will solve the problem people have accessing information after they leave the office. To achieve that objective, Xircom's wireless division is drawing on the several types of hardware the company developed in the past.

Xircom gave life to credit card-sized modems that plug into laptop computers as well as into personal assistants, small wireless devices such as Apple's Newton which work like electronic organizers that have features such as e-mail and fax modems.

About two years ago, the company unplugged the credit card-sized modem and made it wireless. Called Netwave, the new hardware allowed for wireless local area networking. The only problem with Netwave was that it was only useful within the office.

Netwave users could move about the office with a laptop, but failed to function outside the office walls. The next step for Xircom was to try to use the same products but to move to a new level beyond the office place.

Steve Carlson, executive director of the Cellular Carriers of California, a Sacramento-based trade group for cellular providers, said wireless data transfer is now primarily used to transmit documents over cellular channels to faxes.

The possibilities are endless, however, particularly in the area of business applications, he said. Since CDPD will carry voice and video information, the businesses will be able to do tasks from the field in one step that now take several steps.

To demonstrate the way the technology could be used in business, Carlson used as an example a possible CDPD application to the insurance industry. From the site of a disaster, for example, an insurance adjuster would be able to send, via cellular signals, actual video footage of the damage caused by a car accident or a fire in a home.

By way of the cell sites, the hardware through which cellular transmissions are carried, the information would be transmitted back to the corporate office. A decision could be made on the spot about how much compensation the policy holder is entitled to, and the adjuster would be able to cut a check then and there.