It had to be long enough to stretch from an outlet to the nearest pay phone in the hotel lobby. If you transmitted from your room the hotel operator was sure to listen in, hear the modem's screech, and cut you off thinking the phone was broken. But all that new gear also means you never can get away from the office. You just take it with you. There's the business-equipped hotel room, the phone in the seatback in front of you on the airplane and now increasingly a place to work at the airport.
Many airports have Internet access at a kiosk.
Airline clubs offer cubicles complete with phones to plug in a laptop. Now there's Laptop Lane, a complete office solution. It's a Seattle company whose president, Bruce Merrill, used to work for Shell Oil in Houston. Each location features 12 to 15 small, private offices equipped with computers, phone lines, printers and high-speed links to the internet. The average renter stays 45 minutes, Merrill says.