If we evaluate the commercial future of the Internet by the way most of it works today, we would be as badly mistaken as the buggy whip makers who clung too long to a horse-drawn future. The first automobiles were slow, awkward, and a challenge to drive. So, too, with the Internet. Although its roots date to 1969, only in the last few years has the Internet become a downhill digital snowball growing bigger and bigger-and moving faster and faster.

The Internet today boasts hundreds of millions of virtual pages of content and tens of millions of users worldwide. Even so, the Internet is still at the Ford Model T stage of evolution-a slow car on narrow bumpy roads. But geometric change is imminent, because high-speed Internet access will enable this mostly text-based medium to transform itself into a rich multimedia environment. What does that mean to the Internet user? More pointedly, what does it mean to the business community?

Did you get home too late to watch the six o'clock news? It will be stored for replay at your convenience. Did you miss the Indians victory in the '97 World Series? You can catch it whenever you want. Are you looking for a villa in Naples, Florida or Naples, Italy? You can take a 3D tour of your future home. Do you want to preview a barge trip through the French countryside-and watch live TV from Paris to brush up your language skills? Linking to live content from Europe will be a breeze. Do you want to get a 360-degree panoramic view from the cockpit of a BMW Z3 sports car or from a quiet lake in Northern Canada? No problem.

And, if you are selling that villa, that barge trip, that BMW or that lakefront lot, the Internet will offer limitless possibilities to reach and influence potential buyers.

The Internet is on its way to becoming what Interactive TV was meant to be. You can watch and listen to what you want when you want it. You can customize content to your interests and to your availability. You won't always be forced to read words on a screen, you can watch or listen instead to high-quality digital video and audio.

The key to the transformation is high-speed Internet access-much faster than the 14.4k or 28.8k bits/second, which is typical of most of today's users. However, to think of the change as simply an increase in speed, is slightly off the mark. In fact, what's really happening is that much more information is being transmitted per second when you step up to a 56.6k modem, a 128k wireless connection or a 1.4 megabit cable modem.

To understand current Internet limitations, imagine trying to supply water to the city of Fort Myers through a garden hose-showers once a week and eyedropper drinks of water. You can only move so much water through a narrow pipe; what's needed is a great big water main. In other words, it's not that the water is moving faster. Rather much more water is being moved through a large pipe in a given amount of time.

In digital terms, a water main represents large bandwidth. Most of us are connecting to the Internet on digital garden hoses. When we talk about high-speed connections we are really talking about greater bandwidth connections. More bandwidth is what's needed to deliver high-quality video and audio as well as sophisticated 3D images or fast interactive games. Much more digital information must reach your PC in a single second that you are accustomed to receiving.

If you've tried a video connection on the Internet-CSPAN or MSNBC, for example-you have probably seen a jerky, poorly focused image with only fair sound quality. That's because your 14.4 or 28.8k connection cannot transmit the entire data stream required to show what you would see on an ordinary TV. Software trickery is used to compress the audio and video across pokey modem connections. The solution is to bring a bigger infopipe to your home or office. Happily, in Southwest Florida, we have a number of reliable infopipe solutions available.

In fact, we are ahead of much of the rest of the country in terms of fast, faster and fastest Internet access choices. We will discuss alternatives that are here today and are being actively promoted. We will set aside for now technologies, such as ISDN, that are almost certainly being left behind or those that are not yet here, such as ADSL.

A fine example of state-of-the-art Internet access using the fastest available traditional modem technology is America's Web Station (www.awebstation.net ). This Naples-based company uses state-of-the-art 56.6k U.S. Robotics digital modem technology in a modular rack configuration. You cannot access the World Wide Web any faster unless you migrate to a completely different method of getting to the Internet. In practice, this means that you can connect at a maximum speed of 51k due to FCC restrictions-if you have a 56.6k modem. Even with a somewhat slower modem you will probably see the higher speeds than you have experienced with Internet Service Providers who lack state-of-the-art technology. America's Web Station charges $19.95/month for unlimited Internet access.

With this connection you can listen to FM radio stations or other audio material at close to FM radio quality sound. Video connections will be quantitatively better than at slower modem speeds-though still disappointing. But, most of today's Web sites will load on your screen very briskly, with little of the wait that may have dampened your Internet enthusiasm.

The disadvantage of a 56.6k modem link is that you must dial through the telephone company to get to America's Web Station or any such ISP; the quality of your local lines may degrade the speed and quality of your connection.

Wiman Systems Inc., through Worldwide Net, is offering an extremely interesting high-bandwidth wireless technology. Both companies are local to Southwest Florida. Wiman(www.wiman.net) began corporate life in Germany. It developed wireless technology for the German military. Finding the weather and the business climate appealing, Wiman has relocated to Naples as an American company. World Wide Net, successor to local Internet access pioneer, Coconet, is offering 128k bidirectional access to the Internet in selected locations in Naples, Cape Coral and Fort Myers. By the end of 1998, it will offer blanket coverage of Collier and Lee Counties-and at much higher speeds.

Wiman's wireless technology bypasses the local phone company completely and offers speeds higher that the fastest dial up modems. It is equally fast in sending and in receiving information. For those of us in buildings without cable connections or with limited telephone possibilities, it is an excellent alternative to a cable modem. In addition, you will not face the current limitation of cable modems locally, as we discuss below. Wiman technology can even be used in a mobile environment. Although it costs $99 per month for a wireless connection, there is no need to tie up or add a phone line in orde