Whether it's positioned as part of wireless wide area networking (WWAN) or a local area networking (LAN) extension, 2.5G and 3G routers are beginning to extend their presence in the wireless world.

Digi International claims it was first on the scene nearly two years ago when it received certification with Cingular Wireless for an EDGE router. While other vendors may argue about being "first," Digi has since released an EV-DO Revision A commercial-grade router for the CDMA crowd and plans to offer an HSDPA version as well. Naturally, it's not the only one competing for a piece of the pie. Others targeting various market segments, from consumer to commercial/enterprise-ready, include Junxion, Kyocera and Linksys.

GRAND EXPECTATIONS In fact, the space is new enough that some analysts are still trying to determine under whose coverage area it falls. Helping to guide them are the likes of Sierra Wireless, which supplies the embedded module for Digi's ConnectPort WAN VPN, among others. "We're doing a lot of stuff under the hood in this space," says Larry Zibrik, director of product management at Sierra Wireless, who predicts far more activity in the next six months.

Jason Sprayberry, product marketing manager for cellular devices at Minnetonka, Minn.-based Digi International, agrees it's an area of growth. Digi is a public company with annual revenue of more than $144 million, and "this is one of the top two projects we're working on investing in right now," he says. He and his colleagues expect it to be an area of hockey-stick growth within the next year or so.

The enthusiasm also is alive and well at Junxion. The Seattle company's self-described "wireless geeks" are working hard to make it easier for carriers to sell their products. "I'm really excited about the relationships that we have with the carriers and their support and the types of opportunities that we're involved in," says John Daly, vice president of business development and marketing at Junxion. "It's not just about selling a green box. We realize that we have to make it easier to sell, buy, deploy and manage."

Toward that end, Junxion added a remote management feature to its product, something that it didn't initially envision. That helps when enterprise clients need to make large-scale adjustments in networks spread over a large geographic area, such as transit systems, notes Corbin Gerard, principal at Mobile ID Solutions, a Junxion reseller.

The practical installations of the routers vary from landline backup to acting in lieu of DSL-like speeds in remote locations that don't have DSL or cable modem access. Digi's commercial-grade routers are used in utility, building automation, financial services, medical and industrial deployments, Sprayberry says.

While it's easy to say the Junxion box is a mobile hot spot, it's actually more than that, meeting the needs of enterprise and government customers, Gerard says. Among other areas, Junxion is involved in a deployment by the Dallas Police Department's Narcotics Division, where the boxes are used for remote surveillance, an increasingly popular application where wires aren't practical.

RETAIL DEPLOYMENTS The routers, which require a monthly service plan and removable data networking cards if modules are not embedded, are gaining traction at Sprint in areas such as retail kiosks and certain niches such as NASCAR events, according to Ron Wells, manager of product marketing/mobile broadband at Sprint Nextel, which has taken what Wells describes as a "customer-friendly" approach.

Other observers agree that Sprint and Cingular Wireless have led the pack, while Verizon Wireless has presented the most stringent network certification requirements. But so far, no one seems to be promoting an all-you-can-eat data package for business users, according to Sprayberry.

BASIC APPEAL Part of the allure of routers is that they can be configured to allow several people to share a high-speed connection. So, doesn't that run counter to carriers' best interests in selling individual data plans? Perhaps, but Wells says one way he's heard it described is similar to high-definition TV. Everybody comes over to watch a football game on the new set and they say, "I want one." Plus, he says, Sprint's stance shows its confidence in the network, which it is marketing these days as the most powerful.

Of course, word-of-mouth has been a big factor in the router space as Internet-savvy users latch onto it and reviews sprout up on the Web. That could lead to a wider base of fans, regardless of whether they consider it a WWAN tool or a LAN extension.