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« March 2004 | Main | May 2004 »
Steve Stroh has taken a close look at Craig McCaw’s recent purchases in the broadband wireless space: McCaw bought Clearwire, a Texas company that controlled some ITFS spectrum—ideal spectrum for broadband wireless. But Stroh thinks that one of the most important aspects of what McCaw is doing includes the purchase of gear maker NextNet.
NextNet was around during the last big interest in MMDS in the mid-1990s and McCaw has been an investor in the company. NextNet is part of the WiMax Forum and says it intends to build WiMax equipment, but Stroh thinks that McCaw is likely to use NextNet’s proprietary gear to get a jump on the market.
The first certified WiMax gear from almost every vendor will operate in licensed bands in international markets. One analyst recently told me that WiMax equipment designed to operate in the U.S. probably won’t appear until late 2005 or possibly 2006. In the meantime, McCaw can use NextNet’s gear and beat potential competitors to the market.
Also, with McCaw in control of NextNet, he can make sure that the vendor is making the gear he wants. As Stroh notes: “McCaw learned from Nextel that if your service depends on the whims of your supplier, they can dictate things that can materially affect the service.”
McCaw could migrate to WiMax in the future in order to take advantage of potentially lower cost equipment. But Stroh notes that in many cases the proprietary gear may be better than the WiMax equipment. “WiMax is a compromise,” he notes. Even if the customer equipment from Clearwire is more expensive than that of WiMax gear, McCaw will have a head start, Stroh says.
The new Clearwire Web site in part leads Stroh to think that McCaw is close to officially introducing the new business. McCaw may be trying to keep quite about his plans in an effort to try to buy additional ITFS or other spectrum at good prices, Stroh says.
Stroh says he dug up some other juicy information that’s available to subscribers of his newsletter, Focus on Broadband Wireless Internet Access.
[Editor’s note: When we point to a paid editorial resource, we like to be clear whether or not we have a financial relationship with that resource. We do not. We merely know that Stroh knows his stuff.]
Posted by nancyg at 2:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Portless claims best reflashed Linksys WRT54G firmware for open network management to date: As part of ongoing work by several community groups, the Linksys WRT54G has become the base platform to try to tap into because Linksys relied so heavily on open-source software in its creation. It took a little cajoling to remind Linksys of these terms, but then they set up this GPL source download center on their site, which is prominently linked from their Support section.
Now, providing the code and giving people direct access to modify firmware are two entirely different objectives, and while Linksys was obliged to do the former, the latter has been the work of many months by several teams who have reverse engineered a number of key elements. The Portless release, say its engineers, relies on and improves the work of other groups and provides a full NoCatAuth portal. (Their software is under the GPL license.)
NoCatAuth is an open network authentication project that allows free networks to offer some controls over who uses it and how, such as bandwidth shaping and a click-through terms of service page that must be agreed to. Presently, you must have a separate computer running NoCatAuth, which adds to the complexity. The Linksys WRT54G, one of the best-selling Wi-Fi gateways of all time, is about $80 street price, making a community node a cheaper proposition.
The article linked to contains a comprehensive survey of similar projects, including news from Less Networks, which is in a technical pre-release at the moment of their modification of the NoCatAuth software for a less Unix savvy installation by average mortals who have the same desire to spread community networking but lack the technical chops.
Posted by Glennf at 6:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
London’s Westminster Council will build an enormous wireless zone for closed-circuit television (CCTV) monitoring; public access, unavailable: The project might create the world’s largest wireless zone, but this won’t be useful initially to its citizens, only to the monitors of the peace who observe goings on by camera day and night. They also envision connecting people to “Council services,” which might include monitoring the elderly. (The British have such a penchant for “monitoring.” Thank goodness, as previously reported, they now have enshrined privacy rights…which allow CCTV everywhere.)
Over at Techworld, Peter Judge reports that the network won’t be connected to the Internet nor can the council offer for-fee access by law. The idea of free access doesn’t appear to have come up.
Posted by Glennf at 6:37 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Taubman Centers, major mall operator, adds free Wi-Fi to Virginia mall; sign of things to come: The reporter did his homework, and this isn’t a unique installation. We know from this article that there are 1,130 malls in the U.S. with only a tiny fraction having Wi-Fi. (Two are in the Seattle area, University Village and Bellevue Square, operated for fee by Cometa Networks.)
But 100 malls operated by either Westfield America Trust and Taubman may have free Wi-Fi added, with Westfield strongly committed.
Posted by Glennf at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Mike Rutenberg offers this photograph of laundry-Fi: Kostenlosen W-LAN = free Wi-Fi in a Munich laundromat. You can sit, you can spin, you can surf.
Posted by Glennf at 3:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
While many communities around the country vaguely hope that wireless networks will bring business to town, this Indiana town has some very real reasons for wanting broadband: Scottsburg, Ind. couldn’t get any kind of broadband access from the incumbents so it spent $350,000 to build a wireless broadband network. The network equipment comes from Alvarion, which means that it’s probably proprietary gear based on 802.11.
The network has a very tangible economic affect on the town. Apparently, Chrysler promised to shut down the local Chrysler repair shop, which employs 60 people, if they couldn’t get fast Internet access. Other local workers who telecommute threatened to move if they couldn’t get high-speed Internet access. Plus, the school system is saving a bundle with the new service.
This Indiana town most certainly isn’t alone in wanting broadband but failing to get it from the incumbents. While we already see lots of wireless ISPs serving these small markets, clearly they aren’t serving every community that wants broadband. Perhaps WiMax will drive down prices enough to encourage WISPs to build out in more small towns.
Posted by nancyg at 2:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MuniWireless reports that a tribe in Southern California is using broadband wireless to link 18 tribal communities: HP donated a bunch of gear for the network and the tribe is using solar-powered antennas. In addition to the educational benefits to such a network, tribal members are using the access to keep on top of and apply for federal grants.
We’ve linked to other stories about tribes around the country using wireless to bring Internet access to reservations. In most of these cases, the incumbent operators weren’t interested in serving the communities, which are often remote and sparsely populated. But the growth of Wi-Fi has driven down the cost of some equipment such that it’s possible for these communities to build their own networks. Many of these tribes aren’t looking to the Internet for entertainment but as a way to improve the educational and employment opportunities for residents.
Posted by nancyg at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PC Magazine rounds up several 802.11g routers, and says they’re cheap enough, they’re good enough: 802.11b no longer enjoys a large enough (or any) price differential for quality Wi-Fi gateways that include WPA encryption support, PC Mag says. So while you can still find 802.11b devices on the market, they recommend new gear have 802.11g built in. The overall package of reviews and related stories in the issue starts here; use the table of contents at the right of that story to navigate through their guide to 802.11g, advice for buying, and reviews of individual routers.
The Linksys WRT54G gets top marks for 802.11g with a score of 4.5 out of 5 points; but six other gateways received 4 of 5 points, showing how the entire Wi-Fi world has matured into more usability.
Posted by Glennf at 1:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SkyRiver to install 22 Pinnacle hotels with all Wi-Fi service: Pinnacle has 22 properties in the western states and Ohio, and decided against hard-wired Internet because Wi-Fi made more sense as a plan for the future.
Posted by Glennf at 1:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
You might call it just a press release, but Indianapolis company wants to beat Hartford, Conn.: Wi-Fi network enabler Sputnik is working with an Indianapolis firm that appears slightly aggrieved that Hartford, Conn., has one-sixth the residents and more Wi-Fi hotspots. Their public (and public relations) goal? Boost Indianapolis from 48th in Intel’s recent wireless cities survey up into the top 10. Austin’s civic leaders and community networks have made similar statements about leveraging that city’s wireless potential, and perhaps some civic boosterism can help grow Wi-Fi. In Austin, it’s a mix of civic, commercial, and free community; this Indianapolis company appears focused on commercial with a little bit of free.
Posted by Glennf at 12:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wi-Fi cradle allows Toshiba’s 20 Gb music player to sync, broadcast: The Japanese-first Gigabeat can be backed up, loaded with music, or stream music over an optional Wi-Fi cradle. It’s about $700 in Japan.
Posted by Glennf at 12:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
4,000 access points in flyover: Mike Outmesguine brings a CNN representative (reporter?) and some other Wi-Fi fans on a warfly of Los Angeles. We flew from Brackett Field in La Verne (a.k.a. Pomona Airport) towards Pacific Palisades. Then we crossed over LAX into Rancho Palos Verdes and Long Beach. Then headed back to Backett. We picked up over 4000 access points while flying at varying altitudes.
Posted by Glennf at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sydney, Australia, WISP Unwired plans 50 by 60 kilometer coverage at 100 Mbps for 95 percent of Sydney: The company is signing up resellers and will install 63 towers at a cost of Aus$33 million by July. This all sounds somewhat unrealistic except that the firm has apparently already raised a fair amount of money and has its plans quite advanced. (Perhaps it’s a fluke of the Australian market, but I don’t understand how a firm raised money without a plan just by using a shell listed company to avoid the IPO process.)
The article muddles terminology enormously, which isn’t unusual when new technologies appear. The journalist writes, Unwired’s 802.16 standard-compliant Ultra Wideband (WiMax) network… Ultrawideband (UWB) is a short-range, high-speed technology. 802.16a is the standard underlying WiMax which has no final spec yet nor a certification program in place.
The last graf is somewhat mystifying: It has been reported that Intel is involved in the WiMax Forum certification group, an international 802.16 fixed broadband wireless access standard lobby group. Intel has not been hiding its interest, and WiMax may lobby but it’s mostly about certification and education, from what we can tell so far.
Posted by Glennf at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Craig McCaw has reportedly bought a Texas company, Clearwire, that has ITFS spectrum assets: The ITFS band is near the MMDS spectrum but was set aside primarily for educational institutions. During the last period of interest in MMDS, during the mid-1990s, some companies, including Clearwire apparently, negotiated with the educational institutions to use or buy the spectrum. The spectrum wasn’t widely used by the educational organizations that controlled the spectrum.
McCaw has long been interested in fixed wireless broadband. He founded XO Communications, which owns LMDS frequencies, in the mid-1990s. XO recently joined the WiMax Forum. ALso, Nextel owns a bunch of MMDS spectrum that it bought from Worldcom.
McCaw has assembled a who’s who list of execs to run the new company, being called Flux. Many of them are McCaw Cellular veterans and have held posts in other McCaw companies. Notable are Nicholas Kauser who was the CTO for AT&T Wireless and currently sits on the board of numerous Seattle companies; Rob Mechaley, who was one of the founders of RadioFrame and before that Wildfire; and Gerard Salemme, who has been involved with several McCaw companies including satellite company ICO.
McCaw is notoriously mum about new ventures so it wouldn’t be surprising if we don’t learn details about this one for a while. But with real WiMax products becoming available in the near future, it would certainly be fair to suppose that the company may have ambitions of rolling out a fixed broadband offering using WiMax.
Posted by nancyg at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A few weeks ago, Microsoft posted the transcript of a chat about WPS, their Windows XP-only solution for standardized, wizarded Wi-Fi network provisioning: Although the fellow talks about the standards-based approach, it appears that the support on the client side will entirely be within Windows XP; it’s unclear from this transcript whether non-Microsoft clients can be developed, but it might be the case. The idea behind this sort of wizard-based hotspot connection system makes a lot of sense, but a broader industry-based adoption would make it a better win for the hotspot operators who have to consider adopting it. T-Mobile is looking at both 802.1X and WPS, and may already quietly be in trials of both technologies.
Posted by Glennf at 12:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The folks who brought you the Pringles cantenna and the concept of an off-the-grid community wireless network have partnered in a new firm: Rob Flickenger and Matt Westervelt’s Metrix Communications is attempting to be a one-stop shop for networkers trying to find commodity boards, antennas, kits, and parts that are surprisingly tedious to buy separately or as individuals. The gear is focused on outdoor, ruggedized equipment typically used for long haul or interconnection points, but they also carry less technical items, like a high milliwattage PC Card (200 mW).
Posted by Glennf at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network releases first-generation mesh/cloud software, seeks input and development: I spoke with Sascha Meinrath, one of the folks leading the CUWiN project, about the scope of the project, their goals for outside participation, and his recent trip to Amsterdam to meet with a group designing documentation on wireless networks for developing nations.
The CUWiN project wants to allow self-forming, noncentralized, mesh-based Wi-Fi networks using standard, old PCs with no configuration. Slightly more advanced units could be ruggedized boxes using Compact Flash, but the basic unit would be a 486 or later PC with a bootable CD-ROM or bootable floppy that bootstraps a CD-ROM. Once booted, a unit finds other similar units without any other configuration or control and forms a mesh.
“We’ve been developing software now since about 2000, and our idea is to build software that is super user friendly, super easy for someone who doesn’t understand the nuances of the technology or community wireless networking to set up their own system,” said Meinrath. It’s an attempt to enable community networking to spread beyond the folks who are self-starters.
To test their current software, they put together a bunch of old Pentium 133-based system with off-the-shelf Wi-Fi gear, burned CD-ROMs, booted the boxes and watched the mesh network form within five minutes.
However, the current generation of software “won’t scale well: there’s no route prioritization, and there’s this problem of the hidden node problem,” he said. (In a hub-and-spoke network, hidden nodes can see the hub not other spokes and can disrupt other network traffic by improperly sending at times when other nodes are transmitting resulting in interference and back-off behavior that reduces network performance. Mesh avoids some hub and spoke problems, but can effectively move the hidden node problem to any mesh point that has some connected nodes that can hear each other and some that cannot.)
CUWiN is design a system to prioritize routes among mesh nodes based on MIT Roofnet, and are looking into the Hazy Sighted Link State (HSLS) routing issue. HSLS uses packet economics: more dropped packets in a given route de-emphasizes it shunting more traffic to more successful routes. (Read more about this in CUWiN’s FAQ.)
The software release by CUWiN of a CD-ROM image containing bootable node software along with the developer’s resource (distributed under a BSD license with plans to move to a GPL license) is part of their effort to bring in more programming aid on the project. “We’re relying on the open source community to provide us with feedback and ideas,” Meinrath said. “A lot of our inspiration definitely comes from other wireless groups.”
Meinrath noted that other groups are working on similar but not totally related problems. The HSLS issue is one that he believes no one has tackled directly and the group knows is central to providing the decentralized, non-hierarchical, dynamically prioritized system they want to offer.
Interested developers can download the CD-ROM image or contact CUWiN directly to get source code for the bootable project and the Compact Flash version.
On a somewhat related front, Meinrath recently returned from the first meeting in Amsterdam of The Tactical Technology Collective, which works with the Open Society Initiative and the Soros Foundation Network. The group’s goal, Meinrath said, is to put together a resource guide for development nations that has all of the components for building a wireless network: regulation, configuration, installation, and other details.
Participants came from around the world, including Denmark, the U.S., Senegal, Indonesia, Canada, and London. The members aren’t just from developed nations, but include people out in the field in community wireless in developing countries.
“The focus is on training manuals and on those sorts of resources rather than implementation, which is good and bad — which is good and incomplete,” Meinrath said. “One of the problems that we see a lot is that people develop really cool hardware that’s far beyond the means of people on the ground where this equipment is supposed to be used.” The group hopes to have the initial documentation complete in six months.
The Tactical Tech group’s social goal is partly the motivation for the CUWiN project as well: to develop technology that relies on its intelligence rather than the cost of the components, making the use of several generations-old computer technology feasible.
CUWiN’s current disk image is about 30 Mb, and they have a beta that requires just 13 Mb. Their ultimate goal is to reach 2 to 4 Mb in size so that it can be flashed (written into erasable programmable memory) onto commodity units with those limits.
The current generation of Compact Flash CUWiN software has solved a vexing problem: they can now flash upgrade units by connecting to them wirelessly without swapping out the Compact Flash card.
Meinrath said fundamentally, “We’re most interested in how to build a system in which anyone, not just a techie, can set up a mesh with as few as two and as many as 1,000 nodes.”
He offered some recommended reading on both the education site at the Free Press’s Wi-Fi section (which includes excellent graphics about different community network configurations), and the CUWiN grant from the OSI.
Posted by Glennf at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Glennf at 9:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Qwest’s DSL modems are available as retail items at Best Buy including a DSL plus Wi-Fi option: DSL carriers are obviously finding it better to compete with cable by offering essentially free sharing of a single connection as an official option. The retail packaging of a Qwest DSL modem is supposed to reduce Qwest’s cost even further in a DSL installation. Most DSL is now self-installed, removing the expensive cost of a truck roll.
Posted by Glennf at 9:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Open Park Project opened a free hotspot on the Washington, D.C., mall today: Service is available in the vicinity of the Capitol Visitors’ Center, Supreme Court, and Library of Congress. Plans ultimately call for the zone to extend through most of the mall from the Washington Monument to Capitol Hill.
Posted by Glennf at 9:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
To tackle poor Wi-Fi certification first-pass rate, University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) offers approved pre-certification: This might sound obscure, but it’s a way for companies to save potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars and weeks of work off the budget for developing Wi-Fi products. The Wi-Fi Alliance has said that 25 percent of the products reaching their labs don’t pass Wi-Fi certification tests the first go-round. The UNH-IOL will provide an intermediate testing program that will allow mid-stream course correction with ostensibly less cost. Lab users must pay fees unless they support the lab directly, and must be Wi-Fi Alliance members.
Posted by Glennf at 9:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RoamPoint entered the hotspot resale market in early April in a sea of confusion: Wi-Fi Networking News recently talked to Leon de Beer, director of RoamPoint, as well as iPass, a potential RoamPoint competitor, to straighten out some of the confusion.
RoamPoint was started by de Beer and some colleagues who identified the need for a process that makes it easier for hotspot operators to handle the necessary backend support behind roaming agreements, such as authenticating users across networks and tracking usage across roaming networks. The Cloud, a UK hotspot operator, was thinking along the same lines at the same time.
“What we’ve done is use some of The Cloud facilities to kick start this project and we’re now in the process of spinning it out of The Cloud,” de Beer said. The Cloud is currently the majority shareholder in RoamPoint, but de Beer said both entities are hoping to change that soon. “For us, it’s really important to be seen as an independent entity not closely associated with one network,” de Beer said.
Intel is involved with RoamPoint in a co-marketing relationship. Plus, RoamPoint customers must be validated through the Intel Centrino verified hotspot network operators program.
RoamPoint hopes to serve as a hub and clearinghouse for hotspot operators and service providers. “We’ll deal with the technology and you concentrate on the commercial,” de Beer tells potential customers.
The RoamPoint hub offers several services to operators. When a customer accesses a hotspot using their home network’s or aggregator’s login information, their authentication request passes through the RoamPoint platform. RoamPoint doesn’t handle the authentication, but it verifies if the user is authorized to access that hotspot through a roaming agreement the customer’s operator has with the hotspot. If the customer is authorized to access the hotspot, RoamPoint passes the authentication request on to the customer’s operator, where the customer is authenticated.
Because RoamPoint will know which method each of its operator customers uses to authenticate users, RoamPoint can also serve as a central point of information for its customers. Before a hotspot operator approaches another operator about a potential roaming agreement, RoamPoint can identify for its customers which other operators in the network can support their authentication method.
RoamPoint also does network monitoring and collects data about all the hotspots of its customers. “We need to make sure that the service provider can tell customers which hotspots should be working. To collect all that data and make sure we hand it to the customer is non-trivial,” said de Beer.
RoamPoint does not handle billing or settlement but it collects session records and hands the data on to the billing provider or clearinghouse used by each carrier. Carriers pay a fixed connection charge plus a fee for each authentication request that runs through the RoamPoint platform.
Last summer, iPass introduced a clearinghouse for roaming based on the platform it had already developed for internal use to handle authentication, security, and fee settlement tracking among its hotspot operators. “It’s an adjunct business. It’s something we were doing anyway in terms of clearing and transaction and settlement. So we created an offering around that and offered it to carriers,” said John Sidline, director of corporate communications for iPass. Customers of the service can also self-brand the iPass client.
Most customers of the service are operators that don’t have a Wi-Fi footprint who use the service as a go-to-market strategy, he said. Once the operator customer establishes a link to iPass, it can either negotiate roaming agreements individually with operators in the iPass network or buy access to other networks from iPass. For example, Sprint is using the roaming service from iPass. Sprint may be able to negotiate better roaming terms from one of the operators that is part of the iPass network than buying access to that network from iPass. Regardless of the deal the operators make with each other, iPass will facilitate the backend settlement accounting and authentication for Sprint.
The one requirement is that operator customers allow iPass end users to roam onto their hotspots. iPass will facilitate roaming between an operator customer and an operator that may not be part of the iPass network.
While the offerings from iPass and RoamPoint sound similar, neither company seems particularly concerned about the other. “It’s a very small piece of our business,” said iPass’s Sidline. “There’s going to be lots of players coming in doing a variety of different things that are already being done but it’s a large world and there’s plenty of opportunity.”
RoamPoint wasn’t aware that iPass had a similar offering. “We’re not aware that they’ve actually offered any kind of clearinghouse,” said de Beer. He suggested that iPass could become a RoamPoint customer. But Sidline said there’d be no need for that because iPass has already invested several years into streamlining its roaming processes.
Posted by nancyg at 9:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RFID Journal provides the 
detail on Legoland’s kid-tracking Wi-Fi hardware: The magazine provides piles of additional detail about the Denmark theme park’s system to let parents find their children if lost. The system combines BlueSoft’s AeroScout system with software by KidSpotter, which on its Web site, is more explicit that the system can be used to track visitors patterns for better park optimization.
About 1,600 children or 0.1 percent of the 1.6 million visitors, become separated from parents each year, so it’s a small but significant problem. The rental fee is €3 per day; the entrance fee is mid-€20s. The park is installing 38 AeroScout units which cost from $3,000 to $4,000 each. The tags themselves cost about $85 each and the park is starting with 500 of them.
Not mentioned in this article is that the tags use very tiny amounts of one-way signalling which allows their batteries to last for years.
Posted by Glennf at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I know it’s PR, but it’s good PR: science museum gets free network because Ethernet won’t work: Strix has a brilliant little contest running to promote the use of its wireless backhaul and access point system in buildings that are impossible to affordably pull wire through. I’ve heard that museums are a great category in general, because they’re either built so thickly to ensure temperature control or they’re converted from another purpose now defunct (textile mill, hardened office building, etc.).
In February, a prison in San Antonio won the contest. The latest winner is The Science Place in Dallas.
Posted by Glennf at 1:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Dow Jones Newswires reports that 100 McDonald’s restaurants in Portugal are equipped with WiFi: Access will run €2.00 for 30 minutes with the purchase of a McMenu or McMenu Grande meal. Service will be available in all 113 restaurants in Portugal in the future.
Posted by Glennf at 1:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I can’t see my house from here: WiFiMaps has interactive map of wardriving database: Although nodedb has been around for quite a while, offering geographic information system (GIS) mapping of access points to graphical maps, WiFiMaps has a crisper display and shows the results of wardriving and other sources. It’s a good way to tell whether anyone knows your network exists (mine hasn’t been stumbled in this database), and to find out how active Wi-Fi is in your neighborhood or community.
A colleague wrote in after I posted this to remind me of the fine folks at wigle.net who have 900,000 access points in their wardriving database along with downloadable Java and Windows client software which lets you load browsable map modules; you can also browse certain cities through a Web interface. While the maps aren’t as pretty, they’re quite good, and the URLs correspond to specific locations where WiFiMaps hides the URL-to-location mapping. They don’t show my home network either (thankfully?).
Posted by Glennf at 1:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Posted by Glennf at 10:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WiFile is a Palm application that allows Samba (SMB) file sharing access over a Wi-Fi-enabled Palm OS 4 or 5 handheld: This solves a long-standing problem with the handheld devices integration with existing network storage infrastructure.
Posted by Glennf at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
McDonald’s might bundle free access with a special meal, as they did during Wi-Fi trials, or offer premium content available exclusively or first in stores: Leonard Witt, a professor of communications at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, says that at the Go Mobile or Go Home conference last week, a McDonald’s director listed off some of the tie-ins with Wi-Fi that the company will try, including exclusive music downloads and potentially games. The company has also already learned they need to add more electrical outlets. (Although with few outlets, you enforce a de facto two-hour limit on non-Centrino, single-battery customers.)
Posted by Glennf at 12:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Atheros says their single-chip 802.11g product is shipping volume now to manufacturers: The CMOS-based chip design reduces overall cost and power requirements. The chip will be used by D-Link in new products. Included with the chip is the entire portfolio of Atheros features, including extended range and its controversial Super G mode.
Posted by Glennf at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Vivato’s equipment will be used by ICOA to provide Wi-Fi service at the Spokane airport: The airport handles about 1.2 million passengers (counted once for enplanement/deplanement) per year. ICOA seems to be specializing in smaller but high-volume airports like Sacramento, Savannah/Hilton Head, and Fresno that require very little hardware but reach a million or more passengers a year. Extrapolating from Concourse’s figures for usage at Minneapolis-St. Paul, these smaller airports should see 20 to 30 sessions per day.
Posted by Glennf at 12:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BT, France Telecom, Qwest, Reliance, and XO have joined the WiMax Forum: Previously, AT&T and Covad were the only major operators in the forum. Having these heavy-hitters join is certainly a significant show of support, although none has yet pledged to use the technology.
It will be interesting to see how these operators might use WiMax. Operators could use WiMax for backhaul on existing networks. European cellular operators already use wireless more frequently than wired options to backhaul their networks, much more so than U.S. cellular operators, said Monica Paolini, the founder of Senza Fili Consulting. However, the press release about these operators joining the forum focuses on using WiMax to offer broadband Internet to end users. That emphasis could be just wishful thinking on the part of the forum or some of the operators may have expressed sincere interest in using WiMax to serve end users.
Posted by nancyg at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Billund, Denmark, Legoland uses KidSpotter to track children in the park, if parents want: For a rental fee, parents can Wi-Fi enable their children preventing their unintentional loss across the 10-hectare (25 acre) theme park. If your child disappears, the parent uses SMS with their child’s number, and they’re providing with exact location information in response. It’s the largest location-based Wi-Fi network in the world, the release says, meaning it’s the largest network of its kind in which you can track items within it.
Bluesoft’s technology is behind Kidspotter. They separately announced today that their Wi-Fi/radio frequency ID (RFID) tracking technology AeroScout WLAN Location is available for tracking all kinds of valuable assets (not just children) with precise location information across Wi-Fi networks. Because of the high per-unit cost, the company lists applications like tracking people, cars, and containers.
Posted by Glennf at 11:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Despite a trial and now commercial service of a broadband wireless offering in North Carolina, Nextel is reportedly still examining other technologies: Mobile Pipeline reports unnamed sources who say that Nextel is evaluating gear from IPWireless, though not in any public trials. While it’s interesting to note a vendor by name, it’s not big news that Nextel is looking at other equipment in addition to Flarion. The company has been fairly open about its interest in a variety of different technologies, ranging from CDMA-based networks to proprietary gear from Flarion. I’ve talked to a few analysts who say that Nextel is very seriously considering WiMax.
Posted by nancyg at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It’s not bait and switch, but between last night and this morning, Amazon.com raised the price on a NetGear and D-Link router: When we posted the deal last night, the NetGear WGS614 802.11g router was just $37 after rebate; it’s now $57. The D-Link 802.11b DI-514 was $17.50 and it’s now $20. Either the items were incorrectly priced originally, or Amazon.com has a feature that raises prices when interest expands—perhaps there’s even another explanation.
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Investor’s Business Daily notes that Wendy’s may be challenging Burger King for the No. 2 fast food slot, but the CEO isn’t interested in Wi-Fi: This perhaps puts Wendy’s out of the near-term running for the next major QSR (quick-service restaurant) that adds Wi-Fi. But the CEO is dismissive:
At lunchtime, the idea is table turns and you don’t want people staying at their tables surfing. If there’s a way to do that in the afternoons only, we will, he says. However, he’s not looking at his own numbers well enough. The article notes that 65 percent of Wendy’s business is drive-through, and a significant fraction of its counter business is most likely take-away as well.
The idea of Wi-Fi is that it’s a tool to load the restaurants during off-times. Businesspeople aren’t going to come in and spend two hours over lunch trying to get work done, but they might spend money on food and Wi-Fi. A lack of seating rarely discourage the fast-food patron; they take it to go, if they have to, but they don’t find another restaurant.
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The Alliance for Downtown New York proposes a wireless backup plan for telecommunications: For $10 million, the Alliance proposes building a laser and microwave system that would sit on top of five of the tallest buildings in the area and have line of sight from most offices. The system would relay to two other locations, one in Manhattan and one probably in New Jersey, in the event of a loss of service.
The idea is that companies unable to bear the enormous costs of building their own similar backup systems could piggyback on the Alliance’s, which would be vendor neutral to phone companies. This might make businesses who locate in the area less concerned about being cut off from telecom in the future, come what may, although real estate agents think it won’t make a practical difference: rents are cheaper and that attracts tenants.
The article mentions that the Alliance issued a report about its free Wi-Fi zones in which they said that the network had become one of the busiest of its kind in the world. However, the report isn’t on their Web site; I’m trying to get a copy. The redundant telecom network could be used actively to provide more bandwidth to the free Wi-Fi zones, the Alliance said. [link via Craig Plunkett]
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The Washington Post presents a summary of advice on finding hotspots, signing up for service: Daniel Greenberg points out the dilemma of Wi-Fi hotspots: if you don’t know where they are, how do you find them? He mentions our partner Jiwire along with its free downloadable hotspot finding application (Mac, Windows, Linux), and Jim Sullivan’s excellent Wi-Fi Free Spot directory. Greenberg also runs through options for paying (or not paying) for service at hotels, coffeeshops, and other venues.
The Post also ran a host of other Wi-Fi related articles. Elsewhere in the issue, Greenberg reviews four Wi-Fi home gateways in the same edition. He praises D-Link’s configuration simplicity and Linksys’s WPA support, but notes that when NetGear adds promised WPA encryption their unit would give the other two a strong challenge.
Mike Musgrove points out the problems of interference, drawing on sources like Matthew Gast to discuss how Wi-Fi networks in close proximity in adjacent homes and apartments could be a growing source of frustration to wireless users. Rob Pegoraro walks through Wi-Fi basics.
The package of stories also includes a couple of point of view pieces from people using Wi-Fi in typical ways: sharing with a neighbor , avoiding their own DSL bill by using free Wi-Fi, and the perils of Xbox Wi-Fi.
Christopher Confessore explains that for the cost of a couple of cups of coffee, he uses the free Wi-Fi at a local coffee shop. But this kind of free is interesting because he (like other patrons) feel compelled to buy service. He might be spending from $20 to $60 per additional to use the free service; for that price, he could camp out at a Borders or another venue in which because he’s paying for access he doesn’t feel the need to provide incremental revenue to the host.
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The Feature notes that cell data prices have dropped, quietly: A few weeks ago, it was $80 per month for unlimited data from those who offered unlimited plans, with lower fees only for metered services. Cingular offered no unlimited service.
In the face of faster national networks and Verizon Wireless’s commitment coupled with T-Mobile ($20/month) and Sprint PCS ($15/month) pricing, The Feature’s Eric Lin notes a host of small changes. Verizon Wireless is now down to $50/month for 1xRTT, but still charges $80/month for PC Card-based 1xEvDO. Cingular plummeted its GRPS and limited EDGE to $20 per month (but it’s not listed as such on their site yet). AT&T Wireless is offering GPRS/EDGE at $45/month.
To quote Mike Masnick of TechDirt, So, now it seems that the entry point for the highest speed is $80, then you drop to $50 when there’s a bit of competition, and down to about $20 when your service doesn’t have much to distinguish itself any more.
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The Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that certifies Wi-Fi equipment, moves its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas: The Wi-Fi Alliance is more a virtual organization with few staffers. The test labs it work with are under contract all over the place. A television station in Austin picks up the story and thinks that even though it will create no jobs in the Austin area, that there’s a large impact involved. Sorry, folks, there won’t be.
That’s not to put down Austin (don’t mess with Texas, as you know). Austin has a variety of free, community, and for-fee groups and companies including Wayport and Austin Wireless City. (Inset picture of Wayport’s headquarters.)
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Looking to become a hotspot? Jiwire has published an in-depth guide: There’s no question we get more frequently at Wi-Fi Networking News than from individual venues or small chains of locations that want to install Wi-Fi service but don’t know quite how to start or how to evaluate offerings. This Jiwire piece offers very specific advice and direction on making primary decisions—free or fee? on your own or in a network? turnkey or solutions provider?—and then who to turn to.
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Spokane’s proposal for a city-side network would have two parallel uses: a protected, private public safety net, and a public side for general use: The network currently exists downtown and response to the Washington town’s effort has been positive. The downtown network will ultimately span about 100 city blocks and cost north of $500,000 due to donations from Vivato and other vendors. The city’s pitch for funding will play on the improved service for public safety (fire, medical, police). Oddly, the story doesn’t mention two frequently cited reasons for switching to Wi-Fi for public safety: redundancy with other coverage for emergencies, and cost savings because most public safety radio equipment uses licensed spectrum and proprietary devices.
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Two Wi-Fi radio radios are coming, reports The Register: Tony Smith discusses upcoming radios that will act like AM/FM tuners but work over Wi-Fi and the Internet. Both Reciva (startup) and Linksys (part of Cisco) will offer devices that handle radio stations streaming in many formats over the Internet. Linksys’s product, which they apparently plan to make on behalf of other companies, will also support Real Networks’ subscription-fee-based Rhapsody network.
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Somewhere between satire and anarchy lies parody: WiFi Hog kicks other users off public hotspots, even owner: This is clearly practical performance art, but it’s an interesting Gedanken (und Praktisches) experiment as well. If a third party can gain access over a public hotspots, how does that transform the relationship of the owner and other users to that service? [link via comment on The Feature where David Pescovitz further explains the project.]
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Joi Ito’s roaming comes home: $3,500 bill for mostly data (3rd item): Ito is a former venture capitalist and deeply involved with two companies I hold dear: Technorati (which tells me when folks link to this site) and Movable Type (which powers this site). But even such a globe-spanning sophisticate such as he can get it socked to him.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Ito’s $3,500 cell bill, $2,800 of which was for cell data roaming charges representing 188 Mb of transfers, will appear in the next issue of Wired magazine.
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The Kensington WiFi Finder is relatively large (credit card sized) and scans before displaying the results instead of a constant active scan—but it can tell Wi-Fi from junk. WFS-1 from Smart ID is much cooler offering a no-industrial-design-intended box with instant scanning—but which "hears" all 2.4 GHz signals the same.
Push the button on the WiFi Seeker and it scans briefly, often under a second, before displaying a signal strength in zero to four LEDs (movie above requires QuickTime). Keep the button held down and it’s a Wi-Fi dowser, allowing you to move around and see immediate response to different signal strengths. It’s more directionally sensitive than the WFS-1.
Chrysalis will sell the device starting in June for $29.95, but you can sign up now to be notified when it’s shipping. Earlier, PC Tel has said they would make the device available to their customers, and Chrysalis will sell custom branded versions of the device.
A reader who is a fan of the Smart ID WFS-1 wrote in to complain about my characterization of the WiFi Seeker as best in class. He’s used the WFS-1 in hundreds of locations around the country, and considers its monitoring of the 2.4 GHz band (instead of just Wi-Fi signals) to be a plus, as he’s learned to differentiate the pattern of flashing lights to distinguish from among Wi-Fi, microwave ovens, cordless phones, and other devices.
The WiFi Seeker displays solid lights to indicate Wi-Fi signal strength; the WFS-1 flashes or holds steady. I can see why this would be an advantage in mixed signal environments. For the purposes of my evaluation, I’m interested in determining only whether a Wi-Fi network is available. Case in point: at a hotel a week ago, I used the WFS-1 to see if there was an active Wi-Fi network. It flashed like crazy. After firing up a stumbling program and spending some fruitless time seeking the network, I realized the WFS-1 was showing my Bluetooth-to-computer connection. Perhaps with practice, I could have differentiated that.
I expect that a future generation of Wi-Fi detector will have the features that other readers have written in about: the ability to identify closed and open networks, and a display to show what network SSIDs (the Wi-Fi network name) were found, not just that a signal is present.
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Chinese reports indicate that proprietary Wi-Fi standard might not be dead yet: Reports in the country itself were sketchier or downright contradictory about the news yesterday that China had dropped its June 1 deadline and the requirement for using the proprietary WAPI encryption standard.
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Personal Telco places latest free Wi-Fi node in World Cup Coffee inside Powell’s City of Books store in Portland, Oregon: Powell’s City of Books is, in fact, an entire city block, and the largest single bookstore in the world. They have outrigger stores nearby, including a vast technical bookstore. World Cup Coffee has been a big supporter of Personal Telco’s efforts, as well.
Nigel Ballard of Personal Telco notes that This node goes live with experimental support for SIP-based VoIP (Voice Over IP) wireless phones such the Pulver WisIP and the Zyxel Prestige 2000W.
Powell’s pioneered the unique art of shelving new and used books side by side, and first sold books over the Internet using telnet in 1994, predating Amazon.com.
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Long-distance telephone company IDT will blanket an area of New Jersey with Wi-Fi and test low cost voice over IP: The service could cost just $2 per month and 5 cents per minute prepaid, and might be a tool to bring phone service to the cell-less — or even the wireline-phone-less.
IDT is using a VoIP delivery service from Net2Phone, which was also announced today. Net2Phone will route calls for its wireless operator customers to its SIP-base platform, which does call management, billing, provisioning, and handles interconnecting with the PSTN. Net2Phone expects a variety of customers might be interested in the offering, including wireless ISPs, hotspot operators, cell phone or PDA makers, or anyone with a broadband connection. If the service is priced right, this could make it easier for service providers to offer voice over WLANs and could encourage more services to roll out.
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In light of McDonald’s decision to team with Wayport, how many other chains are left? In an interview earlier today with Jeff Damir, a VP at Cometa Networks, he noted that there were many, many other quick-service restaurants (QSR) out there to talk to who might have an audience more interested in Wi-Fi hotspots.
Sure enough, QSR Magazine has a list of the top 50 QSR chains by dollar volume as of 2002. Only two of these chains, Starbucks and McDonald’s, have a comprehensive Wi-Fi plan. Panera and Schlotzsky’s have Wi-Fi in some locations with plans for expansion.
The total number of chain stores in the top 50 are 117,468, a staggering number, of which about 15 percent are committed to have Wi-Fi within a couple of years.
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China shelves its proprietary Wi-Fi security plan: It’s good news for all chipmakers that China has apparently rescinded its June 1 deadline for all Wi-Fi equipment to include a Chinese proprietary security standard only available for inclusion by Chinese companies. This would have exposed international intellectual property to companies most interested in competing with those firms, and would have caused a fragmented world market.
Richard Shim broke this story at News.com earlier today, and has an updated version will full details now. The deal came about in Washington, DC, as a result of joint trade talks with China.
Neither story mentions that Chinese actions in regard to WAPI and related issues put it in conflict with its membership in the World Trade Organization, a group they had lobbied to join for some years and to which they were accepted with the backing of the U.S.
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Cometa Networks is one of the most talked-about hotspot builders, and the least well understood. Their CEO and their VP of sales and business development talked about the present and future dispelling some of the mystery: In an interview today with Cometa Networks’ CEO Gary Weis and vice president Jeff Damir, the two executives provided context for their recent decisions, apparent setbacks, and their future planning.
Cometa Networks is a hotspot infrastructure builder, signing contracts with venues to build Wi-Fi network locations that they also provide technical and customer service for, and then resell access to those locations to service providers such as aggregators (like iPass, with which they have a relationship) and cell carriers (such as AT&T Wireless).
I’ve been one of the strongest critics of Cometa’s ongoing development in part because of the initial hype (not all theirs) and the ongoing obscurity with which they have proceded. I came away from this interview quite convinced that Cometa’s plans are much more in line with how the rest of the industry has matured and the needs of both venue owners with whom they must negotiate and service providers to which they have to sell their offering.
If anything, Cometa and Wayport have swapped places: Wayport is aggressively building as many as 17,000 hotspots in the next three years under contract, while Cometa’s Weis and Damir said they are looking for the right partners to more cautiously build out a network in which every hotspot has the value that their upstream service provider partners want.
Weis joined the firm in March 2003, several months after its public launch. Weis stated at the outset when asked about the previous projections of Cometa’s network growth, “I have taken a lot of time to work with the team we built to get it right, if you will, instead of shooting from the hip and talking off the cuff.”
Even though Cometa started serving McDonald’s locations around the time Weis joined the company—as part of the publicity associated with Intel’s Centrino rollout—the main thrust of their current approach to which venues to partner with began in June 2003 when the firm decided to start a few months later in Seattle.
Weis said that Seattle was selected to “get us more information about what venues are really valuable, not just to our perception but to our service providers’ perception.” In September, they had 100 locations unwired, including McDonald’s locations, which led ultimately to a couple hundred locations. After McDonald’s signed with Wayport, Cometa is back down to about 100 Seattle venues.
The goal in Seattle was diversity: instead of focusing on single chains, Weis said, they installed hotspots into malls, office buildings, public spaces, fast-food restaurants, coffeeshops, bookstores, and car dealership waiting areas. “We’re in a very diverse set of venues, not because we’re confident that any one of those is right, but because we want to learn something in our first market rollout,” he said.
As a result of the Seattle trial, Cometa was able to conclude successfully a year-long effort to sign Barnes & Noble in which they competed with Toshiba for the right to install Wi-Fi hotspots in 650 stores this year. Instead of building out city by city, which was a plan reported earlier when Cometa started in Seattle, Weis said the plan now is a “thinner, national footprint led by the anchor tenant Barnes and Noble.” He noted, “We will also replicate what we did in Seattle” with other diverse venues.
Although Cometa was painted as the loser in the McDonald’s trial in which Wayport came out above Cometa and Toshiba—which is handing its hotspot business over to Cometa—Weis said that their McDonald’s hotspots turned out to have a pattern of usage substantially different, and ostensibly worse, than the other kinds of locations they tested.
“As we went into the final negotiations with McDonald’s, we and Wayport, myself and the team had a very focused attitude towards putting a business proposition on the table that would be successful for the both of us,” Weis said. McDonald’s chose Wayport, but Jeff Damir noted that there are other restaurant chains that might be a better fit for Cometa’s audience and the service providers they resell to.
“You look at the QSR segement, and what you find is that there a lot of players out there with thousands of locations, and not all of them have the same brand and ubiquity,” Damir said. McDonald’s is focused on drive-through and family service, emphasized by the play areas and children’s Happy Meals, he noted. “You go to some other QSR [quick-service retail] players, and they’re much more targeted: they don’t have Happy Meals, they might have different approaches to the market, both in their environment and food—and in their marketing strategies.”
Damir said that in the fast-food market, “there are still good powerful national brands that we would anticipate seriously considering and putting a partnership in place in the months to come.” Both executives said they anticipated announcements about new providers and venues within weeks.
As a Seattlite myself, I asked fellow Emerald City resident Damir about a mall that turns out to be equidistant between his home and mine, University Village. In the mid-90s, the outdoor mall transformed from a set of run-down and off-brand stores to a vibrant, rebuilt complex that combines established local businesses with human-scale “big box” retailers like Barnes & Noble, Apple Store, Crate & Barrel, and The Gap.
Cometa unwired all of “U Village,” as it’s known, but the mall is home to at least four other networks, including T-Mobile in two Starbucks (including what is apparently the busiest Starbucks in the world), free service at the Apple Store, free service at a supermarket cafe, and nearby T-Mobile, Wayport, and Cometa service at Tully’s, McDonald’s, and Kinko’s.
Damir lives close by, but, he said, “I haven’t built all those locations just so it would be convenient for my life.” It may be the most unwired place on the planet in terms of coverage and network multiplicity. “It’s a very interesting micro-experiment of what you could expect to see on a broader basis around the country in the unlicensed spectrum environment that we live in,” Damir said.
Weis cleared up a long-standing confusion over the investment structure in Cometa. Although he declined to provide dollar specifics, he stated that IBM and AT&T, almost always cited in articles as major investors in Cometa, were actually suppliers, not part of the core investment team, which is Intel Capital, Apex Partners, and 3i.
He also noted that their relationship reselling to AT&T’s consumer business had come to an end, but that AT&T had tested this relationship only in Seattle. While AT&T declined to continue the service provider agreement, they did allow Cometa to send out a note to existing subscribers offering free access and future information about service plans. Weis said that 23 percent of the list responded, and that a future return of AT&T nationally wasn’t out of the question.
Damir spoke to the Toshiba SurfHere location acquisition, and said that locations were being mutually evaluated by the venue owner and Cometa. “No one is going to be forced to work with Cometa and Cometa won’t be in a position where they’ll be forced to take on relationships,” Damir said.
On price, Cometa hopes to be extremely competitive, matching the kind of threshold that Wayport has set with its $2.95 for two hours price for McDonald’s outlets. Cometa has always offered competitive wholesale rates, with some of its service partners offering day passes for $3 to $5 and monthly unlimited access for $12.
“When you get above $5, there’s a much smaller group of people who are willing to spend over $5 for that daily experience. When you come down towards three, you don’t need to in our experience to come down much further than that,” Damir said. Cometa has encouraged rates such as month-to-month unlimited usage at $11.95. Ultimately, service providers will set these prices.
Both Damir and Weis acknowledged that the company has been so heads down working on their deals the last several months that news has been scarce. Cometa is talking smaller, building bigger, and the next announcements should provide even more clarity about their path to profitability.
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Long-awaiting update to NetStumbler appears: The program’s developer notes using extreme understatement: Since I released NetStumbler 0.3.30, I have experienced birth, death, illness, new job, and increased bandwidth costs. None of these will be helped by the arrival of both NetStumbler and MiniStumbler versions 0.4. Download and enjoy. Sorry it took so long.
The NetStumbler (Windows) and MiniStumbler (Pocket PC) applications let you scan for access points and record information about them, such as their unique interface address and whether security is enabled. You can pair scans with a GPS to build location-based awareness. [link via Gizmodo]
Simultaneously, iStumbler 84 was released for Mac OS X 10.3.
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T-Mobile UK has service in dedicated bays in 100 Texaco stations near major UK roads: The deal could ultimately result is as many as 1,400 company-owned Texaco stations having T-Mobile UK service, but a limiting factor is dedicated parking space for motorists using the service. There’s an undertone in The Register article and press releases about not just backing up the pump lines (a problem for a gas station), but causing explosions.
The risk of an explosion with a cell phone in a gas station appears to be from the inadvertent seepage of fumes in some cases which can be ignited by electrical activity in a cell phone. The adjacency has to be pretty high. A laptop operating away from the pumps has no risk.
Estonia pioneered gas station Wi-Fi, while a deal with Circle K in the U.S. (which have gas at some locations) appears to have evaporated after Circle K changed hands.
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This story has been updated; please refer to the newer version
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Tropos’s mesh equipment deployed in New Orleans to watch the streets: Ruggedized mesh networking devices will deliver video surveillance of New Orleans streets at lower cost. Police officers will potentially be able to view surveillance while en route. In England, which lacks a per se Bill of Rights with blanket protections, CCT (closed circuit television) is common in most cities. It’s a newer development in the U.S. On the other hand, we’re being watched all the time. On the other hand, (irony intended through repetition), we’re being watched all the time.
Correction: England has rights: Mike Moreton wrote in to note that the UK had adopted the European Declaration of Human Rights a few years ago which provides protections similar to and more extensive than the U.S. Bill of Rights. (Notably, privacy is enshrined with its own article.)
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Every once in a while, we get hard numbers: Concourse reports 5,000 sessions in March for its Minneapolis-St. Paul service: MSP is the 17th busiest airport in the world by passenger volume with nearly three million passengers entering and exiting the airport each month (counted only once during each trip in Dec. 2003). With a mature airport having 0.2 percent of passengers use the service—with total gross revenue anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000 for those sessions because of aggregator partnerships—this should be an object lesson for new entrants into the airport market.
Via email, Concourse Communications’ CEO Joe Beatty noted that the company
estimates the 5,000 monthly sessions at MSP represent about five percent of their potential audience. The growth rate of MSP is 35 percent month over month, he wrote.
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With tiny scattered networks and the loss of McDonald’s, Toshiba’s SurfHere locations fold into Cometa Networks: As rumors surfaced a few weeks ago about a reduction in force at Toshiba’s SurfHere division coupled with the inevitable reason—McDonald’s had already informed them that Wayport would be their anointed partner—Toshiba is essentially exiting their poorly formulated and executed hotspot strategy.
While Toshiba couldn’t gain traction on its turnkey hotspot offering, Cometa gains the ability to include “some or all”—as the press release puts it—of SurfHere’s 350 locations. Reading between the lines, they can cherry pick outlets that make sense to Cometa’s mission. Cometa’s current count of hotspots in their directory is about 100 excluding the McDonald’s that will be taken over by Wayport. The Barnes & Noble deal, a year in the making, will eventually add 500 locations in the U.S. to Cometa’s list. In a News.com article, the reporter notes Cometa hopes to have 800 locations by September not including the SurfHere hotspots.
Toshiba is a massive computer manufacturer, however, and the press release pledges their involvement in promoting Cometa Networks’ hotspots. A tricky affair, since Cometa has long said that they weren’t branding their hotspots, but rather pushing through resale to brands like cell operators.
Publicly held companies rarely like to admit defeat as it can open them up to shareholder lawsuits and stock drops. But the press release pushes a little too hard. “Having helped stimulate the emerging hotspot industry, we believe we can best continue with the strategic intent of the SurfHere Network through this alliance with Cometa Networks,” says Chris Harrington, vice president, strategy and business development for Toshiba’s American operations.
Out of between 8,000 and 10,000 current U.S. hotspots a handful of locations scattered around the country were Toshiba locations. They had no major initiatives. They came late to the party. They secured no chains of stores or major venues. They had, let’s be honest, an almost (but not quite) zero effect on the emerging hotspot industry except to show that at the end of the day you can fire hotspots out of a gun and hope they stick.
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America’s Network reports that sources say Ensemble has closed its doors: Ensemble has long been active in the fixed broadband wireless space. One analyst in this story suggests that the development of the 802.16 standard challenges companies that have proprietary or legacy fixed wireless gear. However, Ensemble built LMDS equipment and the LMDS spectrum has largely been used to deliver high-speed Internet access to businesses, usually in a downtown area. That’s a slightly different market than WiMax will likely serve. Also, WiMax gear isn’t out there yet so it’s hard to say that competition from WiMax put the squeeze on Ensemble.
It’s tough to make the argument that WiMax will challenge vendors that have proprietary gear because many of the vendors pursuing WiMax had proprietary solutions. But they’ve chosen to evolve in an effort to meet the requirements of 802.16. It’s not a great business plan to decide to continue down the path of proprietary gear when a new widely supported standard is being developed that will compete with your solution.
It’s unfortunate to see Ensemble go down, although it seems that some executives jumped ship a while back so perhaps they had a clue that something was amiss. In the LMDS heyday, Ensemble was considered a leader in the industry and one focused on innovative technology.
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Northwest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC) provides grant to pilot project to build mesh/backhaul/longhaul box: The project is backed by the Portland Research and Education Network (PREN) which is working with JoeJava’s Nigel Ballard to develop the MRU. This grant brings their total research money to $30,000, which is enough to build out and test a significant network.
There are many facets to the idea, which combines three radios: a WiMax one for long-haul (currently being provided in a similar-but-pre-WiMax state), one for mesh backhaul among devices using 802.11a, and one that supports 802.11b/g for local client access. Nigel’s goal is a self-contained environmentally protected NEMA4 case…fed by internal deep-cycle batteries, a photovoltaic solar panel, with the main feed being AC power.
Ideally, this could become the way in which the less-developed world unwires itself for data, voice, and media.
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MetroFi looks like Ricochet done right: high speed, ubiquitous coverage, right price: Many people have given Paul Allen grief over the years for his failed investments in digital ideas. Trouble is, Allen has the futurists’ dilemma: he has the right idea, but he’s too early. Metricom’s Ricochet is a great example. While billions were spent and lost—not all his—RicochetR