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Flarion, the developer of FLASH-OFDM mobile broadband wireless technology, said NetGear will make combined 802.11/FLASH-OFDM products: Flarion first demonstrated a seamless handoff between its networks and 802.11 a couple of years ago. Now, Flarion says that the first products from NetGear will be available for testing this quarter.
This is an interesting development that only affects a small number of mobile users. Flarion’s networks are being used by Nextel around Raleigh-Durham and T-Mobile, Vodafone, the city of Washington, D.C., and others are trialing Flarion networks. Although Flarion’s reach may be small relative to the major cellular vendors, it proves itself forward-thinking by this development.
Posted by nancyg at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wired News reports on WanderPort, a company developing a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot solution: The end product will be a small trailer with a diesel generator, an antenna, an AP, and satellite dish for backhaul. Users would be anyone who needs remote and probably temporary connectivity, such as disaster relief organizations.
Another temporary hotspot solution designed for less remote applications is available from Junxion. The Junxion box allows users to insert a PCMCIA card that enables backhaul over the cellular networks. Wi-Fi distributes that bandwidth to nearby users.
Posted by nancyg at 8:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A new device from ZyXel is a multifunction tool: It integrates ADSL, a 4-port Ethernet switch, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and two telephone ports for voice over IP. It uses Session Initiation Protocol for voice support and is aimed at small and medium sized businesses.
Posted by nancyg at 9:20 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Symbol said it will introduce APs that support 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g simultaneously: The APs work in conjunction with Symbol’s switch and will initially be limited to supporting Symbol’s branch office switch. In other multiband news, Atheros introduced a single chip solution that combines 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g. The combined chip may encourage more use of 802.11a and result in better service for end users as devices can connect to the best available signal.
Posted by nancyg at 9:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A number of vendors have made announcements over the past few days about product upgrades that enhance management and quality of service capabilities. Colubris introduced software that complies with 802.11e, the quality of service standard, as well as WMM, or Wi-Fi MultiMedia. WMM is a certification standard created by the Wi-Fi Alliance that is based on 802.11e and supports quality of service mechanisms. It enables the deployment of voice and video applications.
In other recent news, Propagate said that Netgear’s ProSafe Wireless WG302 AP will include AutoCell. The Propagate software automatically tunes signal strength and makes channel selections to avoid interference. The software also includes a privacy mode that makes Wi-Fi networks invisible to unauthorized users.
For larger enterprises, AirWave’s Management Platform is now a preferred software solution for managing HP’s ProCurve APs. The software automatically and remotely discovers, monitors, and configures devices. The platform is targeted at customers who use APs from multiple vendors.
Posted by nancyg at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cingular sold its Mobitex network to Cerberus Capital Management: Mobitex is one of the earliest data networks and was the first to support RIM’s Blackberry devices. The network was initially used by very niche groups of people who were frequently in the field. But once the Blackberry grew in popularity, the network began to be used heavily by traveling business people. Now, Cingular reports that 25 percent of Blackberry users worldwide use the Mobitex network, which has been referred to as Cingular Interactive. Today, Blackberries also operate over the cellular networks and many also offer voice services. The number of Blackberry users on the Mobitex network may decrease in the future if an increasing number of customers want voice services or higher speed access on their Blackberries.
Posted by nancyg at 4:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Proxim lost a legal battle with Symbol and the result may be that Wi-Fi vendors will be required to pay license royalties to Symbol: Proxim had to pony up $23 million in damages and must pay two percent royalties, though every other vendor is on the hook for six percent. The question will be whether Symbol decides to chase down everyone else. Symbol claims that some vendors are already paying the royalties but it wouldn’t name which.
As Peter Judge points out in an email to Wi-Fi Networking News, it will be interesting to watch if Symbol approaches Cisco and how that interaction plays out. Cisco, with its deep pockets, could afford to fight a legal battle that argues against the recent ruling in Symbol’s favor. Proxim basically said it gave in because it would have had to post a bond for a large part of the $26 million if it continued the fight and the company didn’t want that hanging over its head.
In just about any situation, licensing can be sticky. On one hand, companies should benefit if everyone else uses technology that they develop. But one of the reasons that Wi-Fi has taken off so quickly and so widely is because the cost of products dropped so dramatically. If vendors had to pay licenses on many different components of a product, the price would have to rise which at some point slows down growth. We’ll just have to wait and see if Symbol does chase everyone down and if so, what affect the six percent will have on vendors.
Posted by nancyg at 9:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
EWeek offers a brief roundup of some of the highlights from DemoMobile: Announcements included one from Skype that its voice over IP software is available for the Pocket PC so that Skype users can call each other over Wi-Fi networks on their handheld devices. In other news, a company called DropZone introduced a solar powered wireless LAN platform.
Posted by nancyg at 10:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ricochet folks are on their toes and were quick to offer me an update on the service, based on my post yesterday lamenting the lack of a Ricochet-like service: YDI Wireless recently purchased the old Ricochet Networks and two cities, San Diego and Denver, currently offer service. The company is also negotiating with the original 21 Ricochet cities in hopes of possibly reactivating them. I selfishly hope that Seattle is high on their list.
According to a recent Denver Business Journal article (which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be available online), YDI will be the fourth Ricochet owner in the last three years. At some point during the bankruptcy process, the original antennas reverted back to the cities, which allowed Ricochet to hang its gear on light poles.
It will remain to be seen if the new owners can make a business where the original Ricochet couldn’t. The equipment to build the network and the client devices have to be low cost and enough people have to sign up to make the business work.
YDI also recently bought Terabeam, the company that was lead by AT&T Wireless alum Dan Hesse. Terabeam makes wireless communications gear using free space optics.
Posted by nancyg at 10:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Nextel is opening up its trial broadband wireless network in North Carolina to paying customers: The network uses proprietary hardware from Flarion. Initial trialers came from Cisco, Nortel, and IBM and they offered their comments on the service.
Nextel is also expanding the network to cover a broader range and offering a special $50 price for PC cards and modems. The monthly pricing options are pretty good too. For $50 a month, users get unlimited 750 Kbps down and 250 Kbps up. That’s comparable to DSL or cable modem service but also includes the benefit of mobility. Higher speeds are available for higher prices.
If Nextel decides to roll this out in other markets, the operator would again be carving itself a unique spot in the market. The other cellular operators seem to be focusing their data services on cell phones, not laptop users. Those services are also more expensive than Nextel’s offering. Plus, Nextel is positioning its service as a replacement for DSL or cable while the other cellular operators are touting their data offerings mainly as mobile services.
But once again Nextel would be using a proprietary technology which means the network will be more expensive for Nextel to build than the standard gear used by the other cellular operators and Nextel would have to build an extensive network because users can’t roam.
As Nextel moves forward with the North Carolina offering and beings advertising, it’ll be interesting to watch how the service is positioned. I think it’s notable that one of the quotes from a trialer in the news release says that he stops in at cafes to open his laptop and use the Nextel service. That sounds like a direct shot at Wi-Fi offerings in cafes.
Posted by nancyg at 12:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Calypso Wireless said it has received a patent on technology that allows roaming between cellular networks and Wi-Fi or Bluetooth without dropping the connection: The company’s CEO flat out says in this story that he’s trying to pursue the Qualcomm model. Qualcomm developed CDMA to compete with GSM but requires users to pay royalties for the technology.
It will be interesting to see exactly what Calypso got a patent for and if ultimately anyone doing any kind of cell/Wi-Fi handoff will have to pay Calypso. There are already a handful of other companies working on such roaming.
Companies filing for patents to capitalize on the growth of the Wi-Fi standard may become a trend. This Calypso news comes after Nomadix recently received a patent on redirect, which allows hotspot operators to display a sign in page when customers first open their browsers using the network. While Nomadix said it planned to enforce the patent, no vendor or operator we talked to said it had been approached by Nomadix.
In other Nomadix news, The Cloud said it will use Nomadix’ gateways to offer venues the opportunity to build hotspots and become part of The Cloud network. As part of the offering, The Cloud will manage the hotspot and share revenues with the venue. A press release about the deal doesn’t seem to be available online yet but should appear here eventually.
Posted by nancyg at 10:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Georgia Institute of Technologies is working on developing an array of devices, many of them using wireless technologies, to help disabled people: One system uses GPS, a mobile PC, and headphones to help blind people get around. The user programs a destination into the computer then the computer generates sounds that the user perceives to come from a certain direction. The sounds lead the user to the destination.
Another project will make switching on lights or changing channels on the TV easier for people with limited motor control. Users can make certain gestures in front of a panel that beams infrared light at a video camera. When the user breaks the light with a gesture, the movement is translated by a computer which comands a household appliance over a wireless network.
The researchers are able to work on these projects due to a $5 million, five year federal grant form the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, which was awarded two years ago.
Posted by nancyg at 9:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This eWeek article makes some interesting observations about scanning technologies, but I disagree with many of them: The article looks at a new technology coming from Microsoft that will let PocketPC users scan items in stores and read reviews about them. The writer compares the idea to Cue:Cat, a failed technology that let magazine readers scan bar codes in the magazine with a scanner hooked up to a computer for more information about the article or advertisement. This was just a bad idea—nobody reads a magazine while sitting in front of their computer.
On a side note, ironically, some Ziff Davis magazines (eWeek is published by Ziff Davis) were very keen on this idea a few years back. When I first got hired on at Interactive Week there was lots of talk about this and some higher ups were really gung ho on deploying it. I think Interactive Week did actually start embedding bar codes in the magazine but I’m not positive that it did.
At any rate, this article argues that the new Microsoft scanning idea will fail just like Cue:Cat. But I think there are appropriate applications for it. The writer considers using such a PocketPC to scan and read about nails at Home Depot or toilet paper at the grocery store. He’s right that no one would care to do that and that there’s a good chance that reviews that other people might post about products might likely be written by marketers at the companies.
But there are plenty of situations where this type of application could work and already is. Tech Superpowers in Boston has a trial that uses its free Newbury Open.net network to let customers at a bookstore borrow PocketPCs. The handhelds run software from SmartWorld that lets them scan the barcode on a book and get connected to reader reviews and other book recommendations on Amazon.com. I think this is a good application of scanning technology. I can also imagine using a scanner on a PDA when shopping for other competitive products like computers.
However, I agree that buying a PDA and a scanner just to do this kind of comparison shopping may be a stretch for some people. But who knows, there are a million different marketing deals that might make the scanner portion super cheap or free. Or, some shops might let shoppers borrow such devices, like the bookstore in Boston does.
Also, I just have to say that I personally love the self-scan check out at Home Depot. I use it all the time. It’s much faster than waiting in the regular line and if I do have a problem with scanning something there’s a clerk waiting to help out. But I have read many other complaints about it so I think some people love it and some people hate it.
Posted by nancyg at 9:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Cisco Press has put out a book for network engineers and IT professionals looking to learn about building and maintaining WLANs: The book, “802.11 Wireless LAN Fundamentals,” is also aimed at helping IT managers justify the value of the wireless networks in an organization.
Posted by nancyg at 10:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
This poorly-written piece offers up some more comments from Nomadix on its redirect patent: While Joel Short, Nomadix’s chief technology officer, says here that the company isn’t focused on suing companies for patent infringement, he also repeatedly says that Nomadix will “encourage” companies to license its technology rather than infringe.
I continue to make calls to operators and vendors that could be affected by this patent and generally find companies reluctant to talk about the issue. Many of them say that they believe many companies had redirection before Nomadix filed for the patent and as such the patent shouldn’t be enforceable; this is called “prior art.”
But I suspect that few want to actually be the company that challenges the patent. They’re likely waiting to see if Nomadix goes after them. My impression, based on the fact that I continue to feel like I’m informing companies of the patent, is that Nomadix hasn’t yet approached vendors or operators that it feels are infringing on the patent.
There are some companies supportive of Nomadix, however. STSN licenses the Nomadix redirection technology and believes others should too. “The Wi-Fi industry will come to a grinding halt if we don’t support the private ownership of IP [intellectual property],” said David Garrison, STSN’s CEO said in an exclusive interview today. “So, on one hand, we can say we want this industry to develop and have new technologies, but companies like ours aren’t going to invest in the new technology and research if we can’t get protection around IP.”
Posted by nancyg at 10:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
C I Host, a Web hosting provider, gave a journalist a Ford Expedition and told him to hit the road and report on Wi-Fi around the country: The “Wi-Fi Guy” plans to take a big road trip and report on his experiences at hotspots. The “Wi-Fi Guy” apparently doesn’t have another name and the announcement doesn’t mention where you can find his reports. While this sounds like fun, the guy also has to drive around in a gas sucking SUV “boldly wrapped in C I Host’s trademark orange and blue.”
Posted by nancyg at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
EliteGroup and Lindows are selling a Linux-based notebook computer for under $700: The computer runs on an AMD processor and has built-in Wi-Fi. Some analysts wonder if the notebook will appeal to consumers given that low-end Windows laptops are available near that price range.
Posted by nancyg at 10:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
PCTEL gets $3.5 million and Broadcom as a customer after the two settle a patent dispute: PCTEL charged Broadcom with patent infringement in regards to a soft modem that PCTEL said it created and patented. Broadcom agreed to license PCTEL’s modem patents and become a PCTEL Segue Roaming Client customer.
Posted by nancyg at 10:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
William Arbaugh tells you how, on TechTV: He offers step-by-step instructions on how to do it yourself, but cautions that you won’t save yourself any money doing it yourself. Saving money probably isn’t why most people build their own anyway.
Posted by nancyg at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Cisco exec says that once Wi-Fi is available in more places, usage will take off: With so many laptops being sold with built-in Wi-Fi, users will have to feel like they can open their laptops anywhere and get online. Once that happens, he expects a major change in the way people think about work because we’ll be able to work anywhere. I’m not sure that’s a good thing…
Posted by nancyg at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Acer said it will build Wi-Fi networks for free for 120 schools: Apparently it got a huge response to an earlier announcement about the plan so will now hold a drawing. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the networks may be pretty small for some schools. Acer said it will build up to two sites comprised of four APs each within a school. Not enough to cover most schools but good for coverage in areas like libraries and study halls.
Posted by nancyg at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Comverse demonstrated a product that lets Wi-Fi users send SMS messages to cell phones: This may seem like a no-brainer but SMS isn’t an IP-based system—so you can’t send an actual SMS from any computer. This blurb, however, makes it sound like wireless operators may be migrating toward IP SMS systems.
Here is an actual press release from Comverse on the capability. The idea is to let Wi-Fi-enabled PDA users send and receive SMS with cell phone users.
It will be interesting to see if this is the way people will want to message between devices or if instant message clients, which are already becoming available on cell phones, will handle messaging between cell phones and devices like PDAs.
Posted by nancyg at 9:53 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Corrider Systems demonstrates 256 Mbps over medium-voltage powerlines: The ultimate vision is to use powerlines to carry data near end users, then deliver the data over the final mile with Wi-Fi. This system was deployed as a test by Pacific Gas and Electric over a section of its grid. Product availability will be second quarter next year—is it too soon to dream about the potential for real broadband connectivity competition??
Posted by nancyg at 10:39 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The links take you to isbn.nu, a book price comparison Web site to find the lowest price at most online bookstores.
Wireless Hacks by Rob Flickenger. This guide to how to become a wireless sophisticate should be on the shelf of anyone with the urge to extend their range, make their own antennas, dive into the command line, or figure out the best way to connect two locations topographically. It’s a fun book that brings back some of the thrill of yesterday, when hobbyists ruled the technology roost. Follow the link for more details.
The Wireless Networking Starter Kit by Adam Engst and Glenn Fleishman. Your humble editor of this Web site has written a 336-page tome with a colleague about the underpinnings of wireless networks and how to use them, including chapters on long-range wireless, using wireless on the road with hot spots and community networks, and configuring software (both clients and gateways).
Build Your Own Wi-Fi Network by Shelly Brisbin. This how-to book aimed at people who want to build their own wireless network using Wi-Fi offers practical background and step-by-step advice.
802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide by Matthew Gast (O’Reilly & Associates).The book covers all the issues around using wireless network-based systems for IT professionals and programmers. The detailed approach to the protocol level issues surrounding Wi-Fi is a necessity for anyone trying to understand how to develop software that runs over a wireless network, or build networks around the protocols that underlie the 802.11 family. O’Reilly has a sample chapter online.
Building Wireless Community Networks by Rob Flickenger (O’Reilly and Associates, 2001). Publisher’s description: "Building Wireless Community Networks offers a compelling case for building wireless networks on a local level: They are inexpensive, and they can be implemented and managed by the community using them, whether it’s a school, a neighborhood, or a small business. This book also provides all the necessary information for planning a network, getting the necessary components, and understanding protocols that you need to design and implement your network." (Full review here.)
The CWNA Study Guide: training material for the certified wireless network administration test.
Posted by Glennf at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Martian NetDrive Wireless: 40 gigabytes of small, silent, 802.11b filesharing
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Went skiing. Several folks to wrote to wonder what was up. I was out of town skiing for a few days, and although I was reading wireless news from all over, nothing of great import happened this week — so far. Okay, Larry Brilliant, as expected, is no longer Cometa’s CEO; he was always interim. Some products were introduced. But everyone must have been tuckered out from CTIA.
Site visit: FatPort: I visited the folks at FatPort at their world headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia, on my way back from the Whistler, BC, ski area. FatPort has a retail space in a landmark downtown building in which they’ve set up a help area, a display of products, and some tables. There are also tables in a central area near the exterior glass elevators that take you up to the view at the top of the building.
Because FatPort’s offices are right there, hidden out of sight, they can always have someone manning the desk in the front, answering questions and selling cards and service.
FatPort’s model is bottom up in a different way, though. The retail space and the hot spot venues they’ve worked to deploy directly are just part of the education mission. The larger goal is that they want folks to buy their hardware platform to deploy hot spots; FatPort gets a piece of the action and needs no venue deals.
Posted by Glennf at 6:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Martian NetDrive Wireless: 40 gigabytes of small, silent, 802.11b filesharing
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Cisco acquires Linksys for $500M: This acquisition is a clear win for Cisco, which can sell up and down the horizontal chain to consumers (which they’ve never really sold to directly, only through partners like DSL providers), small businesses, and their traditional enterprise market.
Cisco’s closest competitor in the enterprise wireless LAN/home Wi-Fi space has really been Proxim: Proxim can compete on features and the kind of customers, but not the installed base. Proxim, through mergers and product acquisition, has the largest consumer base outside of Linksys, but it also can serve enteprises through several products in the WLAN area, and, because of their merger with Western Multiplex, has a rich portfolio of point-to-point systems, including gigabit point-to-point.
Even with the tech downturn and Cisco’s remarkable write-off two years ago, the company has a market cap of $100 billion. Cisco has a varied portfolio, however. Proxim, focused on wireless now, has a market cap of just $91 million. That’s not a misprint. It’s clear in hindisight that Cisco would have been choosing between Linksys and Proxim, and chose Linksys.
In discussions with many in the industry in the last year, it was clear that the coming WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and 802.11i, which would put certain enterprise-style network authentication features into every Wi-Fi access point, meant that at the same time as basic security will be improved, every AP is also now ready for the enterprise. (Performance, throughput, aggregated management, simultaneous users, and secured tunneled EAP messaging will differentiate consumer and enterprise products.) Several WPA or 802.11i-compliant Linksys AP for $100 could provide much of the functionality needed by a business with 50 to 500 employees with an IT department that knew how to run an 802.1x system with their RADIUS server.
Cisco has a history of dealing well with its acquisitions: Linksys won’t suddenly raise prices, cut quality, or shift its focus. Instead, we’ll see more of a product line from bottom to top, and, as I said in a previous day’s postings, the attitude still prevails that nobody was ever fired for buying a Cisco.
Posted by Glennf at 7:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Martian NetDrive Wireless: 40 gigabytes of small, silent, 802.11b filesharing
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What’s the Boingo and T-Mobile Deal Mean, Anyway? A colleague and I wrote back and forth about the deal announced yesterday that puts Boingo clients on T-Mobile’s customers’ computers — but doesn’t merge networks. He said, Today, when I sit down in Starbucks, Boingo pops up and associates me with a T-Mobile hotspot. I type my password into the Web page that automatically shows up, and T-Mobile charges me. He asked, what changes with the new deal?
Boingo is a software company disguised as a network company, so that’s the confusion.
Boingo has a software product that works on clients and a server product that works on back-office stuff. The client software sniffs and detects any network connections, but identifies those that are part of its network — whether that’s Boingo’s own branded service if you’re using Boingo service or T-Mobile or some other company if you’re using a “skinned” Boingo client that belongs to them.
When you are on Boingo’s network of partner hot spots, you don’t sign onto an access point and then a Web page. You just click “connect and pay” (or whatever it says) inside your Boingo client and you’re on. No authentication gateway Web page.
T-Mobile is using a gateway Web page. When you use your Boingo client on their network in the currenet scenario, Boingo’s client sniffs the T-Mobile hot spot access point, but merely connects you to — it doesn’t have a relationship with that hot spot.
In the T-Mobile/Boingo deal as announced, T-Mobile will adopt Boingo’s client with a T-Mobile logo on it, but not Boingo’s network. If you’re using the T-Mobile client as developed by Boingo, you’ll only be able to directly sign on (without a gateway page) to T-Mobile hot spots. T-Mobile will also use Boingo’s software on the back end for billing, tracking, and authentication.
For the time being, you could wind up with both T-Mobile (Boingo) software installed that works with just T-Mobile’s networks and Boingo (Boingo) software installed that works just with Boingo’s partners like Wayport and Surf and Sip and Fatport.
It’s confusing, but I don’t expect it’ll last long. Networks want to merge; it’s an axiom.
Qualcomm CEO makes me laugh, frown, shake my head: This article reports from the CTIA (cell industry trade group) conference in New Orleans, and summarizes many of this week’s announcements and the future direction of cell-data. The Yankee Group, probably Sarah Kim, estimates only 30,000 paying customers by the end of 2003, but I think that means monthly subscribers.
The quotes from Qualcomm chief Irwin Jacobs crack me up, however. The article notes Qualcomm invented Verizon’s EvDO network technology, and notes that Jacobs believes Wi-Fi’s appeal will fade once Verizon’s technology is available nationwide. “If you have coverage everywhere, are you going to be willing to pay an additional cost for it when you go into a hotspot?” Jacobs said.
Dude, you’re a laugh riot! Hot spot users might number a few dozens or, at worst, a few hundred with a robust Ethernet-like local wireless network that will mediate access to somewhere between 512 Mbps and 8 Mbps of upstream and probably something less downstream. Adding additional wireless access points and capacity will be trivial and relatively inexpensive if it’s based on paying users.
Verizon has limited frequencies available to offer their high-speed coverage, and if it becomes successful, they can’t just layer more bandwidth on. Adding cell sites is increasingly costly and difficult because of health and civic complaints, however justified. And they can’t create micro-pico-cells very easily. Wi-Fi is almost inherently extensible. With current technology you could have a pool of a raw 200 Mbps or so (four barely overlapping 802.11g channels) in the US without very much expense over 11 Mbps. With a future Vivato switch, 600 Mbps would be possible or more in a single area. Of course, you won’t have the upstream or downstream bandwidth, but the ability to keep data density and plug into backhaul is the Wi-Fi advantage.
EvDO, depending on its pricing, will almost certainly be one of the technologies that makes data ubiquitous, but it’s only a complement based on the regulatory, spectrum, and physical limits on cell data coverage and capacity.
Posted by Glennf at 2:27 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Martian NetDrive Wireless: 40 gigabytes of small, silent, 802.11b filesharing
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Boingo, T-Mobile partner on software, not networks: Sky Dayton of Boingo and John Stanton of T-Mobile used the bully pulpit of the cell-industry trade group CTIA’s New Orleans convention to announce a partnership in which T-Mobile would adopt Boingo’s technology platform. On originally reading the press release, I thought this was a network deal, too, but it’s clear that T-Mobile just wants (at this juncture) Boingo’s authentication and roaming platform and client software.
The press release points out that T-Mobile will continue to allow Web-based gateway access to their network, but that the Boingo software would allow superior single-account integration, along with sniffing and access for T-Mobile GPRS 2.5G network as the technology becomes available. (PCTEL is licensing the 2.5G integration software for laptops and PocketPC’s to Boingo.)
Boingo has an investment from Sprint PCS, so T-Mobile’s partnership marks the first intersection of any cell operators’ interests.
Update: It turns out a lot of reporters got the story wrong or incomplete, as I did on first glance. I spoke in the afternoon to Christian Gunning, marketing director of Boingo, to confirm that the T-Mobile deal is platform (back-end and client software), not roaming. He also agreed with my statement that this agreement doesn’t indicate the presence of nor does it preclude any future agreements with T-Mobile.
A story from Reuters says the two companies will develop software and services to make it easier for T-Mobile customers to access Boingo’s wireless broadband and data networks which is confusing enough on its own. A Dow Jones Newswires story was vague about implications, but mentioned the size of Boingo’s network.
CRN reported as if the software deal was a new network: Dayton didn’t specify when the service would be available, how billing would work and how much the service would cost. Actually, it will overlay onto T-Mobile’s current HotSpot network. It’s about the customer-facing software, really, not about a different network.
T-Mobile wants to make it easier for customers to sign on and manage their access. A single button sign-on is pretty slick, no matter how you cut it. Also, adopting the VPN software that Boingo offers allows T-Mobile to fix that last pesky security issue by giving its customers an entirely secure method.
At last, LaGuardia: Concourse and Wayport partner for private, public Wi-Fi: Concourse and Wayport are splitting up the enormous task of offering wireless services to both the private companies at the metropolitan New York/New Jersey airports, and have a commitment to install Wi-Fi service by year’s end at all three: Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK.
Concourse Communications has had the contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to install wireless services (voice and network) in those three airports since at least mid-2001. When I wrote a story about airports unwiring in November 2001 for the New York Times, I called the Port Authority, somewhat apologetically, to confirm the Concourse arrangements. The Port Authority had built the World Trade Center towers and had substantial operations there; hundreds of their employees were killed on September 11. The fine folks couldn’t confirm whether they had a deal with Concourse or not; ultimately, they had Concourse fax them the contract that they had signed, and confirmed based on that.
During 2002, occasional peeps emerged from Concourse about their plans to build test installations in at least two of the airports, but the never-recovered air traffic that would have driven this market obviously delayed their Minneapolis-St. Paul deployment, and pushed back these tests.
Partnering with Wayport is a move that makes sense: the Minneapolis-St. Paul partnership with iPass was vendor-neutral on the public side, as this one is, which means that any wISP can pay for access at the going rate without worrying about competitors having better or worse access. But iPass’s model has always been per day or per hour; not flat rates or monthly caps. I don’t know what they charge in M-St.P, but it’s likely to follow that model which is out of sync with the wISP world.
Wayport is part of Boingo and iPass’s aggregated network, and has partnerships with several wISPs outside the US. With their existing relationship and a vendor-neutral host operation, Wayport has effectively become the preeminent infrastructure player through this deal. Wayport has had the burden in the last few years of being the company in this space with the most expensive existing infrastructure: they focused on hotels and airports, and those are expensive to build and run. (T-Mobile earns the honor of paying more per month for less coverage area than any other wISP because of their T-1 lines.)
T-Mobile’s San Francisco International Airport launch two weeks ago and this LaGuardia announcement today signals the beginning of the end game that I had predicted for 2003: that by the end of the year all or nearly all of the airports in the top 35 markets would have some reasonable Wi-Fi coverage. The vendor-neutral approach assures that various wISPs uncouple their empire-building plans from the bigger goal of providing service to a growing group of Wi-Fi-enabled travelers.
Motorola partners with XtremeSpectrum on ultrawideband (UWB) products, proposal: Motorola will use XtremeSpectrum’s technology and partner with them on an IEEE proposal. The IEEE 802.15.3a task group is working on a physical layer standard for Personal Area Networking (PAN). (IEEE 802.15.1 is the group that created a Bluetooth subset in conjunction with the Bluetooth SIG; 802.15.2 is the co-existence with WLAN task group.) UWB is a method of using ultrashort, low-power pulses to communicate enormous amounts of information, but it requires swaths of spectrum. UWB advocates contend that UWB’s nature makes it impossible to interfere with other uses of the same spectrum, as UWB is below the noise/duration threshold for current spread-spectrum and other radio technologies.
T-Mobile’s Stanton talks about Wi-Fi: The head of T-Mobile says that Wi-Fi’s promise is just arriving and that they’ll really see results in 2004 and 2005. That’s a nice long-term goal for you; not the flash in the pan nonsense of failed wISPs of a couple of years ago.
(Singing) Dont Meet Me in New Orleans, Ernie, Don’t Meet Me at the Fair (or Trade Show): I’m not actually in New Orleans, but reporting remotely through press release, email, and phone call from Seattle, Washington.
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Vivato introduces outdoor switch at CTIA: In what will be a week of announcements from the cellular industyr’s trade show in New Orleans, Vivato unveils its second product, an outdoor switch. Vivato claims four kilometers (2 1/2 miles) of outdoor coverage, as well as penetration of of exterior and interior walls of adjacent buildings. The outdoor switch differs from the indoor swtich by providing a ruggedized enclosure that can be mounted in environmentally challenging locations. They even have heat exchangers to keep the electronic from frying or freezing. The outdoor switch has three beams, like their previously announced but not yet shipping indoor switch. They offer 33 Mbps of Wi-Fi across those three beams (focused tracking Wi-Fi), although effective speeds may seem faster — my analysis — because of the lack of competition for spectrum among bursty users. A few beta users comment in the press release on the capacity, switching, and coverage. Imagine when it supports 802.11g and offers more beams. The unit’s list price is $13,995, and it will appear in May through value-added resellers at the same time as the indoor switch.
Verizon to roll out EvDO in D.C., San Diego: Verizon has apparently acquired enough spectrum (and cheaply) in enough markets to roll out EvDO, a third-generation (3G) cell data technology that could allow from several hundred Kbps on the go to 2.4 Mbps for stationery use. I can’t wait to see if those are real-world speeds, or full-shared circuit speeds: that is, 2.4 Mbps is the available per-cell speed, split among users of that cell. (The same story misreports that Verizon is rolling out Wi-Fi service to hotels and airports; rather, they’ll resell Wayport service under their own brand.)
Three fixed wireless broadband service providers in California join sales, marketing, wholesaling efforts: NextWeb, SkyPipeline and SkyRiver Communications have partnered on an interconnect agreement that allow them to join sales and marketing, including wholesaling services, across all markets served by the three companies. The areas they serve include the San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Orange County (NextWeb), Santa Barbara, Ventura County, San Fernando Valley, parts of the Los Angeles basin (SkyPipeline), and Ontario, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego (SkyRiver).
Nextel, Motorola to release Wi-Fi + cell phone: The phone, expected to be in trials by second quarter, will use GSM/GPRS networks, Nextel’s iDEN network, and Wi-Fi. Handoffs will still be a problem, though, and you can see the cell carriers mindset when they say handoffs are hard. They are — if you’re relying on the network instead of a combination of device and network. NetMobile Wireless has a combination of client and server that can work on handhelds and laptops that allows handoffs in TCP/IP. If you’re using Voice over IP, NetMobile’s offering already provides that seamless network-agnostic handoff.
Intersil, Proxim settle patent dispute: Intersil and Proxim dropped the suit in favor of moving forward, cross licensing patents, and Intersil paying $6 million to Proxim. Proxim, meanwhile, will use some of Intersil’s technology.
Truck stops unwire: In the latest update on truck stop wireless hot spots, Columbia Advanced Wireless will deploy 1,000 truck stops with wireless networks for truckers to stay on top of their loads and schedules. So far, they have two locations listed; watch for the 998 to come. (Truck stops are a reasonable place for non-truckers to stop, too, given that these wireless networks will most likely be in areas with otherwise limited broadband capability.)
Texas Instruments introduces WANDA: tri-mode wireless handheld concept design: The Wireless Any Network Digital Assistant (way too cute) will integrate Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GSM/GPRS and allow simultaneously phone calls, Internet access, and other services. WANDA incorporates oodles of TI technology to offer all of these technologies in a single form factor. TI is offering reference designs that manufacturers can license to produce variations on WANDA.
PCTEL updates Segue roaming client to work with PocketPCs: The new release aids connecting PocketPCs to Wi-Fi networks by sniffing and connecting to networks through settings that an individual, an IT manager, or a wISP sets up. The models supported include the Dell Axim X5, the Toshiba e740, and the HP iPAQ; PCTEL says it supports other PocketPCs as well. Interestingly, this client also is part of a family of clients that allow 2.5G, 3G, and Wi-Fi roaming.
Bluetooth buyer beware: incompatible profiles confuse users: A report from the CTIA workshop day’s Bluetooth panel in which an aggravated attendee asked whether buyers had to caveat emptor: answer — yes. Bluetooth is a standard, but many different uses exist and not all devices support all uses. Clear enough. But it’s confusing which devices support which uses when you’re trying to integrate. Obviously, the Bluetooth SIG should have adopted a program that lets you know, probably visually, which of a dozen uses a device supports.
Jupiter says 57 percent of US businesses use Wi-Fi: Another 22 percent will adopt it within 12 months.
HotSpotVPN launches for-fee VPN service: In what should be a giant relief to many wireless hot spot users, the first commercial service dedicated to offering on-demand VPN (virtual private network) encrypted tunnels to ordinary folks outside of corporate operations has launched. The service costs $8.88 in its introductory period and works with all major operating systems that have VPN support.
France Telecom and Accor story en anglais: Andy Abramson of Ken Radio wrote in with the English language version of the French Telecom/Accor announcement of Wi-Fi deployment in the Accor hotels.
Proxim and Trillion connected 500 schools in several southern states using Tsunami equipment: Trillion has wirelessly hooked up 500 schools, with 250 more on the way, comprising about 400,000 students in elementary and secondary education in Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana. A Tennessee school district estimates $100,000 in savings over a previous setup (probably wired?) with seven times the bandwidth.
GigaWave to provide Cisco Wireless Career Certification: Many readers ask about how to get trained and hired in wireless fields. With many enterprises standardizing on Cisco wireless equipment — for the right or wrong reasons, such as, "nobody ever got fired to buying Cisco gear" — this kind of training could be a useful career move.
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After a couple days away, I find that Intel still rules the coverage of Wi-Fi: Intel’s new Centrino system is getting a lot of play from several directions, a few days after its introduction. Very little of the coverage concentrates on whether the new laptop processor, chipset, and wireless card combination are much good. Rather, pundits and reporters and individuals speculate on whether Intel can control the destiny of PC makers wireless options. The answer so far appears to be mostly, but not quite. Several laptop makers, as was earlier reported, are hedging their bets by either offering full Centrino systems with options (often no cost) that allow the use of alternate wireless cards; or have stuck with just the Pentium-M and its associated chipset or their own support chips for graphics and input/output, and are using other options for wireless.
The Broadcom deal with Dell, for instance, allows Dell to offer 802.11g and also a/g as an option to corporate customers who need that configuration — and Dell isn’t charging more for it. But Broadcom is also selling Dell its gigabit Ethernet and modem chips, so they’re realizing revenue from every Dell Latitude sold even if they’re not making the money on the wireless end.
Jon Markman offers a broad ranging set of insights into the current Wi-Fi climate, from Intel to rural wireless ISPs to hot spots, and his take on Intersil and Broadcom’s wireless future is bleak: Intel has the dominance and the marketing muscle.
Still, PC makers have indicated in various articles or through their behavior that they don’t want to live in an Intel hegemony because this locks them into technology decisions they might not agree with. Intel delaying 802.11a/g adapters til mid-year might have been more about manufacturing issues than Intel’s stated intent to only release standards when they’re ready. This put laptop makers in a bind: Broadcom’s shipped 3,000,000 802.11g chipsets since December, so there’s a huge market that wants all 802.11g already, and Centrino can’t deliver that yet. Several articles indicate that Centrino’s wireless module won’t be easily updatable—or at all. But the Broadcom module and other mini-PCI or mini-PCI-like options for laptops are a simple card upgrade. Compaq is pushing its MultiPort adapter slot which is designed for this problem.
Broadcom told me the other day that companies like to adopt technology lines for several years to ensure predictability. Dell’s refresh of its Latitude computers for the first time since 1997 mean that the decisions Dell made for today will probably still be in effect in 2005 or even 2007. The fact that Dell didn’t adopt Centrino as the only egg in its basket — nor did HP/Compaq, Toshiba, IBM, and others — means that that open choice will reverberate down the years.
Ultrawideband might push out Bluetooth physical layer: As I’ve predicted in various forms, if UWB proves itself, the radio part of Bluetooth could disappear, while Bluetooth’s top-level protocols remain. The IEEE 802.15 working group on Personal Area Networking had made great progress with 802.15.1 by approving a subset of Bluetooth’s spec with the Bluetooth SIG’s involvement. The 802.15.2 task group had several months ago worked out a co-existence plan for living in the same place as Wi-Fi-like networks (and an FCC decision reducing the number of channels that a frequency hopping standard needed to use will make that even easier). The 802.15.3 task group has been trying to establish a base on moving forward in the radio part of things, and many of the proposals coming in rely on UWB.
France Telecom and Accor to unwire 900 hotels (press release in French): The Orange France division of France Telecom will install wireless service in 300 of Accor’s hotels by the end of 2003, and 900 overall. This includes all four classes of hotels, one to four stars (which mean different amenities, not ratings), that Accor operates. Accor has over 3,800 hotels worldwide. [via Jacques Caron]
Mount Washington has wireless Webcam at the top of New England: Some insane folks at the Zakon Group in New Hampshire braved exceptional snow and temperature conditions to launch a Webcam at NH’s Wildcat Mountain Ski Area (4,000 feet) pointing at the legendary Tuckerman and Huntingon Ravines. (My father-in-law learned to ski on Tuckerman Ravine using Stem Christies to turn from a full stop. Yes, it’s steep.) The Webcam is solar powered and relays its signal wirelessly to the Mount Washington Observatory (6,300 feet). The Observatory has a frame-relay line.
McDonald’s Wi-Fi signals beginning of the end: Erick Schonfeld of Business 2.0 finds signs of the infopacalypse in McDonald’s offering Wi-Fi service. He points out that although the folks who sell wireless equipment are seeing terrific revenue, the hot spot business hasn’t proven itself at all.
Le Vivato Carré: The Big Easy gets a Big Antenna this week, as Vivato puts up a temporary deployment in the French Quarter (the Vieux Carré if you missed my obscure joke) of New Orleans during the cellular industry’s CTIA conference. The Vivato Outdoor Switch, which is mounted on the front of Muriel’s Jackson Square Bistro on Chartres Street, is beaming Wi-Fi to the Jackson Square and the Mississippi riverfront area of the French Quarter in New Orleans - a very historic area known for its bustling nightlife, hotel balconies, ritzy restaurants, unique bars and the famous Café Du Monde.
MMDS/ITU bands might open new territory for 3G: The 2.5 GHz band reserved for certain kinds of long-distance learning and instructional television originally, but which the FCC allowed the nonprofit and institutional geographical licensees to sublicense to commercial providers might find some new life. Worldcom and Sprint own the majority of these sublicensed frequencies, and it’s a huge swath of good spectrum that’s horribly underutilized. A variety of reports indicate that it’s a bad idea to simply take this spectrum away. But there may be opportunities for it to be repurposed and then have other firms purchase the sublicenses. The FCC is also looking into the use of this band for wireless broadband, while 3G might also be a possibility.
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They aren’t dancing in the street, but purple-clad men have laptops strapped to their bellies in Times Square: Today in New York, Intel has been showing off its new Centrino system, a set of three components including a wireless module, that they claim will radically increase battery life, potentially improving it by 50 to 100 percent, through more efficient processor usage and chips that control the power to various components including the wireless radio.
A correspondent in New York called to say that he was walking by the Times Square McDonald’s — the Cometa network in New York McDonald’s went live today; look at that big white empty country — and saw men dressed in purple suits with laptops strapped around their stomachs. You were supposed to walk up and use these laptops, typing inches from their private parts. (He promises a photo; Bill Koslosky pointed to these photos he took.)
Intel has also blanketed the country in advertising. The New York Times this morning, for instance, had a multipage ad section focusing on wireless — the first two-page spread in the section had the word unwired in about 700-point type. The last page listed a number of wireless ISPs/hot spot operators and locations.
Paul Boutin is at the launch: Watch for his Slate coverage later today.
HP opts to not use Centrino for professional models: HP is worried about corporate customers who don’t want built-in obsolescence through built-in wireless. They’d rather offer interchangeable cards. They will use the Pentium-M, though, which the author of this piece implies is a different piece of technology. HP will introduce 802.11a, b, and g through an Atheros module in mini-PCI format in May. A consumer Centrino will follow in June.
Dell and Broadcom partnership explored, alongside a cavalcade of chipmaker announcements at 802.11 Planet: A great round-up of several chipmakers recent announcements, including the Dell/Broadcom one. This story at e-insight doesn’t quite explain that the Dell Latitude will use Centrino by default. Read Dell’s press release for the clear statement.
Wi-Fi Alliance says WPA certification coming in May, a/b/g labels dropped in favor of speed, frequency: Wi-Fi Protected Access, the subset of IEEE 802.11i security revisions still in progress, will be certified by May, resulting in massive firmware upgrades for tons and tons of devices. The Wi-Fi Zone program will identify the local service as 2.4 GHz and/or 5 GHz, and 11 Mbps or 54 Mbps. A little bit of a matrix to sort out.
David Weinberger (Cluetrain, JOHO, NPR) interviews David Reed on why interference is an illusion, and spectrum policy is deeply flawed: Reed says that the notion of interference is rooted in a pre-modern era in which devices spewed out radio frequencies and weren’t intelligent enough to adapt. Interference is a metaphor that paints an old limitation of technology as a fact of nature, he says.
T-Mobile to provide CTIA Wi-Fi coverage: Alan Reiter reports that T-Mobile and Sprint contended with the organizers and conference center to have the right to offer service. They’ll charge $10 per day or $20 for three days. Alan’s not sure if his tutorial will have service, which is ironic.
Buy a Fujitsu and get 2000 T-Mobile HotSpot minutes free: Fujitisu is offering 2000 minutes of T-Mobile HotSpot service for free when you buy a qualifying notebook. In typical fashion, the terms aren’t disclosed: do they expire? do they start ticking when you buy the notebook? [via Dan Gillmor]
Newbury Street community network possibly only commercial/community freenet: Leander Kahney of Wired News writes about Michael Oh’s efforts to offer to free wireless networks across an increasing area of Boston’s Newbury Street to promote his business while doing good. Oh seems to have a single backhaul, which radically reduces his cost in offering this kind of service.
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McDonald’s offers meat, potato, Wi-Fi: Cometa’s first partner appears to be McDonald’s, which will test hot spot service starting with 10 locations in Manhattan, and then expanding to 300 stores in three cities. This is a test, only a test, they note. The service will be free for an hour if an extra value meal is purchased, then $3 per hour.
A source unconnected with Cometa accidentally obtained a list of these first 10 locations and shared it with me.
1560 Broadway (Times Square)
220 W. 42nd St. (near Bryant Park, where NYCWireless has substantial, free access)
280 Madison Ave. (near Bryant)
18 E. 42nd St. (near Bryant)
427 10th Ave. (near Javitts)
47 W. 57th St. (near 59th St. entrance of Central Park)
1271 Avenue of the Americas (Rockefeller Center)
724 Broadway (two blocks from Washington Square Park, anther NYCWireless free location, which I can’t find a node link for)
1499 3rd Ave. (and 85th St., Upper East Side)
1651 Broadway (and 51st St.)
Frank Boosman and I had dueling Weblog entries over the potential for Cometa to find 5,000 locations in a year and 20,000 in a few years, and I dissed McDonald’s as a reasonable place for the supposed core Cometa market to work. Does a businessperson, Cometa’s ostensible audience, want to sit among screaming children in an uncomfortable seat? As I say, this is a test, only a test.
The article, by the way, has a few odd facts in it that appear abstracted from a Wall Street Journal article today (see below for more on that). Borders plans to have Wi-Fi hot spots at all 400 stores was announced last October; T-Mobile is installing that service, and it was planned back then to be up by summer. Late in the article, it mentions Intel saying there will be service in passenger lounges in San Francisco and Dallas/Ft. Worth airports. San Francisco was announced last Wednesday by T-Mobile, and Dallas/Ft. Worth has had hot spot service for at least two years, possibly three or four, because of MobileStar’s proximity.
Dell offers Broadcom as option on Pentium-M laptops: In my news brief in Wednesday’s New York Times, I write about Dell’s expected announcement tomorrow that its new Latitude and Inspiron laptops will both use Pentium-M processors, but offer Broadcom 802.11g cards as an alternative to the wireless module that’s part of the Centrino package.
Business Week offers the analysis that PC makers like HP, Toshiba, IBM, and Dell want more flexibility than a single vendor option for their wireless technology, as well as the speed offered by 802.11g. Dell is the first announced, but Broadcom said three other PC makers would use their technology, too: how about HP, Toshiba, and IBM? All four PC makers will offer full Centrino systems in order to participate in Intel’s $300 million marketing and cobranding campaign, hedging their bets to be sure.
PC World runs down three early Centrino test systems, including a Dell Latitude, and notes that Dell won’t charge more for the Broadcom 802.11g option than the Intel card.
Wall Street Journal characterizes Intel’s Centrino move as risky: It’s a new story, but the key word throughout is risk. The article notes that co-marketing and co-branding funds, the money and cooperative advertising that Intel offers and purchases, are only available to computer makers that opt for the full Centrino system that includes the Wi-Fi 802.11b module (supplied by Philips, Symbol, and TI). Centrino ran some intense tests against hot spot networks before it allowed them to call themselves Centrino verified, but competitors like Linksys see Intel smoothing out these bumps as beneficial to them as well.
Portland, Oregon, contemplates Civic-Fi: The city of Portland, Oregon, the press-friendly Nigel Ballard (who sent this item in — note I didn’t say press hungry), and Personal Telco, the local community networking group, are discussing how and if Portland, Oregon, could offer free wireless service to promote business and nonprofit activity.
Hilton says 30 hotels in 30 days: The Hilton chain of 230 properties in North American will unwire 30 of them within 30 days, they announced today. They’ll also be working with British Telecom for their overseas hotels to have 40 of them unwired shortly. There’s no mention of price in the press release.
The Martians have landed: You’ll note the new sponsors today, MartianTechnology. Their network-attached storage (NAS) device, the Martian NetDrive, is nifty, and an example of new things to come. Yesterday, I reviewed in TidBITS the Linksys EFG80, an 80 Gb, Linux-based NAS that offers wired-only access to 80 Gb of storage and an empty bay; either bay can handle 120 Gb drives. The future is about to arrive for Wi-Fi-attached devices.
InterContinental hotels go Wi-Fi for $10K a pop (or POP): InterContinental is testing Wi-Fi at their hotels with a free hour and $2.95 per hour after that. (Hey, that’s McDonald’s pricing!) They also note that it cost them just $10,000 per hotel to add service, because they’ve offering it in just the public areas.
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Broadcom ships 3 million 802.11g chipsets: Jeff Abramowitz, senior director of marketing, said in an interview, “Industry transition from b to g is happening very rapidly.” In the next 30 days, he said, Broadcom would announce deals by several PC makers to use Broadcom’s chipset. Having been an early adopter helps Broadcom outflank Intel, Abramowitz said, because Intel’s Centrino isn’t yet 802.11g-based. That support would come later this year in new hardware.
I confirmed with Abramowitz that Broadcom’s technology is ready for both WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and 802.11i: he noted that the chips support AES, the more advanced encryption algorithm that will be adopted in 802.11i. Abramowitz, like many in the industry, are looking forward to WPA since it will finally offer a reliable first line of defense. “WPA will have a marked effect on wireless LANs into the business enviroment,” he said.
Abramowitz pointed out that Broadcom’s 802.11g chipset is all in CMOS, which is the least expensive integrated circuit manufacturing technique. Their goal, like several other firms, is to put the whole shebang into a single chip, which reduces power requirements and signal loss while opening up new equipment into which a chip could fit and be powered.
Intel preps its Centrino launch with Wi-Fi focus: A great roundup of the wireless issues surrounding the Centrino launch. As the article notes, the Wi-Fi incorporated into the Centrino product is a standalone module which contains components by Philips (and also Symbol and Texas Instruments) as Intel’s work was ready in time. Intel claims that integration with its processor will produce better wireless results, including lower power use. Other chipmakers have promoted the same benefit, however, without having to make the processor, too. It’s absolutely clear that the Centrino campaign will produce something close to total awareness fo wireless networks for anyone who has any interest in computers. Watch for other announcements on Wednesday that will attempt to steal Intel’s thunder!
Boingo announces private label service: In the next step of Boingo Wireless’s evolution, they’ve announced a more general plan to allow companies who want to offer wISP service a private label option. Boingo tested this plan with Earthlink and Fiberlink. The company also announced that a later version of their sniffer software will detect available 2.5G cell data standards to better integrate hot spots with cell operators’ offerings. Finally, a little Politburo-style interpretation of the mention of $10 million in software development: this is a boast and a threat. They’re telling the world they spent $10M to get this far to make competitors like Cometa turn into cooperative partners when they realize what it takes to get the client side right.
Agere demos 802.11a/g chipset; sampling in June: The last of the big players finally releases its plans for moving forward into g. Agere, partnered with Infineon, will sample chips in June that are dual-band. (I don’t go in for this a/b/g thing: g’s standard fully encompasses all b encodings, so it’s a/g and dual-mode not a/b/g and tri-mode.) [via SmallNetBuilder]
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SeattleWireless: the COM stands for COMFUSING: Rob Flickenger writes about the confusion caused by SeattleWireless.com, which is not a community networking group, for SeattleWireless.net, which is. The .net folks are building alternative infrastructure to create entirely potentially unrestricted backhaul for community networks. The .com folks are putting out press releases.
The straw that broke the camel’s back yesterday that Rob F writes about has to be that .com is accepting credit cards for a service that appears to be based on maps copied from community network groups. Accept no imitations.
Me on mesh: My latest InfoWorld Test Center Insight in which I look at mesh networking’s advantages, the companies deploying, and how developments in the near future from Intel’s signaled interest could reshape the landscape of point-to-point into something new and strange.
Comprehensive worldwide wISP directory: Bjöaut;rn Thorngren, an analyst at BrainHeart Capital, sent a link to a company resource they’ve developed that lists every known wISP in the world. Click through on each wISP to read details about current and planned deployments.
Pubs are good hot spot locale choice in UK: The BBC writes briefly about Inspired’s plans to roll out thousands of hot spots alongside gaming machines. I’d failed to mention yesterday that British Telecom has already committed to using the vendor-neutral network Inspired is setting up, which allows BT to attain their 4,000 hot spot goal quite a bit faster than installing it on their own.
Powerline products complement Wi-Fi: The powerline HomePlug products use electrical wiring in a house to connect devices without hubs: they bridge networks using Ethernet, USB, and Wi-Fi. Oddly, the article doesn’t mention Siemens remarkable SpeedStream product which is both HomePlug (for bridging) and Wi-Fi (as an access point)—and it comes in under $100.
Europe keeps getting smaller: Megabeam bought by Swisscom: Alan Reiter analyzes the purchase of Megabeam by Swisscom, which immediately creates a network of 800 hot spots in several countries. Alan notes the high prices still charged in Europe, in contrast to moderate prices in the US.
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Inspired Broadcast Networks launches in UK: 250 hot spots in two months; 1000 in four months; 3000 by end of year: Guy Kewney’s scoop a few days ago breaks to the light of day. The gaming firm Leisure Link already has placement in thousands of locations. Inspired’s The Cloud service will piggyback on that. The service will be vendor-neutral host, meaning that you’ll be seeing a lot of US and Canadian firms signing up to roam onto that network to increase their hot spot count.
Alan Reiter, as usual, has exhaustive reporting on this, including Ericsson’s announcement that they will be building out the infrastructure for Inspired. Watch for Guy Kewney’s analysis as well (to come, I’m sure).
I believe we can call today the day the dike broke. Why the UK suddenly went from a few hundred installed and a few thousand committed to tens of thousands in the works and several thousand up in the next months is anyone’s guess. There goes that tipping point.
San Francisco Intl Airport might be turning point for hot spot proliferation: Notice I didn’t say anything about hot spot profit. O’Reilly Networks very kindly was interested in a few thousand words from me surveying the state of hot spots, mostly focused on the US. It’s a deep overview, if that’s not an oxymoron.
Monty Python’s Flying Dog Food Cans: In a typical display of British yeomanship, a man has used dog food tins (cans) to create a wireless link back to a broadband connection. In the US, a coffee can served the same purpose.
Venture capitalists leave networks open: Downstairs neighbor of Benchmark "borrows" a cup of bandwidth: Sure the servers are password protected, but are they using a security protocol like IPsec on the data transmission? If it’s in the clear, then no one needs to break into servers, just passively monitor. [via TechDirt]
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San Francisco International Gets Unwired: As reported earlier in the week, this morning was the official press event and unveiling of T-Mobile’s first post-MobileStar-asset-acquisition airport launch. And what a launch it was: San Francisco International, just a bit north from Silicon Valley. I wasn’t at the location, but I expect there will be a pile of press reports.
The press release notes that SFO will be unwired during 2003. The first phase launched today include gates 80 to 90 in Terminal 3 (including food court and lounge), the United Red Carpet Club, and the ticket and lobby area of the international terminal.
RV park Wi-Fi: RV parks start cutting the cord in a natural combination of folks moving around while wanting to stay connected. The charges are just $2.50 per day or $21 per month in the example cited. Jim Sullivan, who sent the item in, also pointed to CampLAN.
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Wayport scores CNN arrangement, still must negotiate with airports: Wayport has signed a deal with CNN, according to internetnews.com, that allows them to build out vendor-neutral host access points at the 38 airports at which CNN has its airport television network. The rub: Wayport still needs to negotiate with each airport, but it doesn’t have the same kind of infrastructure cost as going it alone.
As you may have read in this space before, most airport authorities and an increasing number of commercial venues are looking for vendor-neutral situations in which one company acts as the infrastructure provider and fee settlement firm, while other networks have full roaming access for the fees set in those locations. The only complication is that some of these hosts require daily fees, not monthly memberships, so even an unlimited service plan wouldn’t include the location. This will certainly change, but the fee settlement will be complex.
Those with long memories will recall Global Digital Media, a company I mentioned in Feb. 2001 in the New York Times article that led me into covering field. GDM had signed a deal with CNN, the head of GDM said, that let them into the same sort of relationship. I’ve been waiting for this to resurface. [via Joe Brancatelli]
Intel promotes Asian roaming: Intel is working with several companies in Asia to try to develop integrated roaming and billing systems. Research firm IDC estimates 150,000 Asian Wi-Fi users outside Japan and 2.7M by 2007.
Joe Broke Me: Configuration-less hot spot might need tech support: Joe Sharkey, the business travel columnist of The New York Times, writes about his experience using Wi-Fi in a London hotel that’s pushing the service. For him, it worked fine — with a laptop configured by the hotel. But when his colleague Joe Brancatelli fired up his own machine, no go. Brancatelli told me that it the tech guys wrestled with his machines, but it turned out (later) to be a setting that forced a connection through a dial-up modem. Unchecking a box gave him access. So much for automatic configuration: tech support is always needed, and hopefully, they’ll actually check the network settings next time.
Alan Reitermania: Alan on Toshiba’s hot spot plans and Guy Kewney’s scoop on 30K hot spots in Britain: Alan covers two interesting stories today. The Toshiba announcement is fascinating; the company has been selling turnkey hot spot systems (see my turnkey rundown) for some time. However, they’ve moved into high gear: they want to get 10,000 hot spots set up by selling their system for $199. Alan reports that they will be advertising heavily in four test markets to support merchants who adopt the system. A few days ago, Toshiba of Canada announced plans to roll out Canadian hot spots themselves.
Meanwhile, Alan also reports on Guy Kewney’s remarkable scoop: a UK gaming company that already has DSL lines to 3,000 pubs and other locations that feed their gambling machines. These machines were connected to allow high-speed upgrades of new games and other services, and their security is as airtight, they say, as you’d imagine a gaming operation to be. It’s a breeze for them to turn on Wi-Fi service in those 3,000 locations. They’ve also placed an order for 21,000 DSL lines over three years. Guy doesn’t explain how that turns into 30,000 hot spots at year’s end, but perhaps some of these lo