Poll a random sample of big enterprise chief information officers (CIOs) about their top priorities and wirelessly enabling field workers and traveling executives is almost certain to come near the top of the list.

More and more firms are recognizing the importance of making company data and services — e-mail and intranets — available to employees wherever they go. It's crucial both to making them more efficient and helping them serve customers more effectively.

Small businesses need to follow their lead. A few, as we discovered, already are.

At the very leading edge of the boomlet in mobile wireless data applications are those that involve sending multimedia data — images, and eventually even video — over cellular networks.

This was unthinkable even a few years ago. Data rates over cellular networks were woefully slow — 19 kilobits per second (Kbps) at the most. But new faster 2.5G cellular networks based on global systems for cellular communications/general packet radio service (GSM/GPRS) and code-division multiple access (CDMA) 1x radio transmission technology (1xRTT) now provide three or more times the data throughput.

Some wireless data applications require extensive work to integrate existing computer systems with the wireless networks — work that may be beyond the budgets and skill sets of many small firms — but others require only simple tools.

Some small businesses are taking advantage of this technology. We spoke to two in Canada, both in the real estate industry, both using cellular to send and receive digital images.