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Edmond, Okla., puts Wi-Fi in its libraries: Twelve libraries in the Metropolitan Library System will gain filtered but free Wi-Fi. The Edmond Library offers access across 27,000 square feet to support up to 200 simultaneous users. The system will cost just $60,000 to implement.
Richmond, Virg., has Wi-Fi in the park: Monroe Park has access. And that’s about all the story says.
Intel researchers tread the same group as Skyhook: An Intel Labs researcher discussed the limits of GPS in urban areas—downtown crystal canyons, he called them—and how Wi-Fi might substitute. Skyhook already offers a commercial Wi-Fi database (both a local, updatable one and remote one for handhelds) that offers this match-up. Intel’s work seems more like basic research on user behavior and appears focused on handhelds.
Why carry around something that produces a constant set of coordinates? Think about a future in which everything you carry has the option to include coordinates in metadata: a camera stamps the location, a laptop records where you were when you viewed a page, a browser sends (with your approval) coordinates to a Web site which offers customized information without you having to enter a Zip code or other details.
Skype users will pay $7.95 per month for unlimited use of Boingo hotspots for Internet telephony: Boingo has 18,000 hotspots worldwide in its network. Boingo users pay $21.95 per month for unlimited use of the network, and Boingo surely sees this as a stepping stone to acquiring more full-fledged users. Skype users can also pay $2.95 for a two-hour connection.
Users will be able to download the software from Skype’s Web site and all of Skype’s premium services will be available to users. Initially, the software will just be available for Windows users. It’s not clear what that means for voice over Wi-Fi handset users.
The heads of these companies think this is going to be a disruptive offering, though it’s more likely to be marginally interesting. Dave Hagen, Boingo’s CEO and president, said he expects this service to interest mainstream users. But realistically, this would be most interesting to a budget-conscious frequent traveler. Hagen has a point when he says that most travelers spend a lot of time in airports, hotels, and cafes—all locations that do or are likely to have hotspots. That traveler could save a lot of money by spending just $8 a month to make calls in those locations instead of paying for airtime on their cell phones.
One journalist on today’s conference call announcing the service asked a question about companies like Vodafone, that are threatening to block voice over IP over their 3G data networks. If data access prices drop enough, at some point it can become more economical for users to do voice over the 3G data networks. Unfortunately, not only does that cut into regular voice profits for the mobile operators, it’s a really inefficient way for operators to carry voice. Skype’s CEO, Niklas Zennstrom, said such moves to block voice over 3G are evidence that the 3G operators might be worried about the types of applications customers might decide to use over their data channels.
For now, voice over 3G data networks shouldn’t be much of a problem, given the rates the operators are charging for data access. Zennstrom noted that he does voice over Vodafone’s 3G network using a data card and that in a matter of minutes he pays the same as a month’s subscription to the new Skype/Boingo offering. He’s exaggerating but his point that $8 a month is a good deal is well taken.
Indianapolis, Indiana, airport may add SBC FreedomLink Wi-Fi: The airport authority may vote on July 22 to add Wi-Fi, probably with SBC, who would likely charge.
Dave Burstein does a virtuoso interview on the near-term developments in cable, DSL broadband performance over at BroadbandReports.com: Karl Bode interviews the veteran broadband analyst Burstein about the major telcos and cable companies’ deployments. Burstein explains how VDSL2 isn’t really much faster in its first version than ADSL2+, how fiber will reach millions of homes, and how many of us will still be stuck with speeds not much faster than today for some time.
It’s pretty clear from his coverage of the field, that a subset of U.S. homes will be able to get much faster speeds — 10 to 20 times faster than the average speeds available today — through cable or DSL. But it’s only a subset and it will probably be uneven.
Many of the fastest DSL speeds require fiber to the neighborhood and then higher-speed DSL variants that work over just 500 to 1,000 feet. On the cable side, as we’ve written here months ago, DOCSIS 3.0’s deployment probably starting next year will bring much larger pools of bandwidth making 20 to 30 Mbps service downstream to the home more widely available on those systems.
Burstein isn’t a wireless expert, and, unlike so many others, says so. But he thinks that the current speeds for WiMax and other variants aren’t enough to impress once the wireline speeds start ramping up. And he’s right. WiMax has to hit sub-T3 speeds (5 to 20 Mbps) to be truly useful, and it’s becoming clear that those speeds will only be available across a mile or two.
Vail, Arizona, high school ditches books, wires: The high school of 350 students will use laptops and electronic texts. The methodology of whether this works is based on the superintendent looking around at other schools, but apparently not viewing results like attendance, test results, and softer measures. Further, the article doesn’t touch on the problem with electronic texts, that they’re highly controlled for distribution and licensing and often have limited periods of use, such as a year or a school year. Conventional textbooks can last several years, be handed around, and even used by (gasp) more than one person at a time.
Until such a point that electronic textbooks have the same flexibility and usefulness—not just up-to-date-ness, when that’s even happening—as print textbooks, the value of this switch is not documented, not supported by research, and not wise.
The Feds want EZSubpoena, technical changes to airplane broadband: When terrorists are using Connexion, Tenzing, or other in-flight Internet services, federal authorities don’t want to wait for operators to tap into data streams when presented with a subpoena. They asked last Tuesday, according to Wired News, for the FCC to make sure that in-flight Internet is as easy to tap as telephone lines. Of course, any smart person of any stripe is using encryption to protect their data, but sometimes the destination of packets—not just their content—is enough to provide useful clues.
The Justice Department wants several difficult technical details to be handled. Cutting off access to specific users or the whole plane without affecting the control cabin isn’t a problem, but asking for Wi-Fi-connected users to be identified by seat number is awfully tricky. It might require a change to the login procedure or the addition of new software, if it would work at all in an area with such high reflection. Finally, Justice wants cargo areas to be shielded from Wi-Fi.
Muskegon County, Mich., gets $2 million federal grant: Some clever congressperson allocated a large sum to get five rural communities wireless broadband service. The article mentions that two existing broadband options exist in the county, but doesn’t describe how many rural residents have access to either. Very unlikely that DSL is an option for those in rural areas.
Columnist Steven Levy alerts the mass audience reading Newsweek at the efforts by incumbents to restrict municipal broadband: Levy argues in favor of underserved communities and self-determination, although he’s not pushing the idea that municipal networks are ideal and will all work, either. His key sentence: “They [incumbents] argue that taxpayer-funded competition makes the marketplace unfair (ironic, since those firms owe their dominance to government-granted monopolies).” I would also add that many municipal utilities that operate broadband entities are taxpayers, too: not all government operates tax-free, which is a meme spread by the anti-municipal forces.
I’d also argue here that Levy’s comment in the intro about free and low-cost Internet service is particularly interesting: most of the municipal wireless efforts will offer a minimal but good level of bandwidth at a price commensurate with the speed. If you can only get slow DSL-like speeds for $20/month, then aren’t you a natural when you crave more for $40 to $60/month multi-Mbps speeds from incumbent DSL and cable providers?
The fiber-plus plans directly challenge incumbents in a way that the next two to four years of wireless networks cannot. (Although many fiber efforts I’ve read about offer wholesale networks, not retail ones, giving an in for incumbents and others.) The incumbents are ratcheting up speed rapidly to compete in their duopolies and against coming 3G, broadband wireless, and WiMax flavors. In two years, cable speeds of 20 Mbps down and 2 Mbps or up won’t be unusual or terribly expensive, and you can buy ADSL running at 6 Mbps down/768 Kbps up as a business service for $100 per month in Seattle (unlimited bandwidth).
There’s a case to be made that municipal wireless makes a market by hooking people on speed that they have to switch to wireline providers to fulfill.
Report estimates total cost of municipal wireless networks five-year costs: The analysts at JupiterResearch say $150,000 over that period of time, but Tropos Networks says it’s more like $100,000. Philadelphia’s plan shows $15,000,000 in operating costs ($10.5 million raised, $4.5 million from cash flow) for initial operation, which is between the two numbers.
Popular Science shows you how to equip a solar-powered backpack as a roving cellular-to-Wi-Fi hotspot: Mike Outmesguine of The Wireless Weblog filed this How2.0 article for Popular Science on using Seattle-based Junxion’s portable cellular-to-Wi-Fi/Ethernet gateway with a backpack and a solar charging system. The total cost is about $1,100, but you could be the best friend of every other commuter or game player near you.
A lower-tech but similar solution has been pursued by Seattlite Casey Halverson the Seattle-to-Tacoma Sounder commuter train. You have to be in range of Casey for it to work.
Oakland, Calif.’s AC Transit will put Wi-Fi on 40 buses: The service will be free as part of three-year grant. Interestingly, the money is coming from an air quality governmental group: the more Wi-Fi on buses, the less driving? Interesting concept.
Mesquite, Texas: A sleepy Wi-Fi story about a small town.
Sort of hilarious over the top article about a fellow caught using someone else’s Wi-Fi network furtively: The SUV driver apparently can afford a big old car but not a DSL or cable connection, which suggests nefarious activity. He was arrested under a law for unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony. Because the fellow was a) parked outside someone’s home not just using a neighbor’s leaky service, b) did it at 11 pm and c) was furtive, it’s possible that he was engaged in untoward activity, but neither he nor prosecutors are talking.
The problem with an arrest like this, of course, is that what is the value of the theft? 15 cents? Who is the victim—the ISP or the subscriber? It’s a lot of money spent to prosecute a problem that can be dealt with by turning on security.
If someone bothers to break through WEP for a home network, well, that crosses the line for sure. But this is just a strange case. It reminds me of the wrong-way driving, pantless Canadian, early morning Wi-Fi signal thief. Except the Canadian was alleged to be viewing child pornography, clearly an evil and illegal activity contravened by strong laws in almost every country in the world, where we don’t yet know what the SUV fellow was up to.
And one point of view was missing: for ISPs that don’t care if you share, this isn’t a crime or a problem. The monolithic ISP view is always represented by companies that think sharing is stealing. Speakeasy Networks is apparently by my research the only ISP of any scale that encourages sharing. I asked the CEO about this the other day at their pre-WiMax launch, and he confirmed it: they don’t monitor, they don’t care. They’re selling you a pipe and you can make lemonade for the neighbors with the signal that comes out.
The Wall Street Journal reports Deutsche Telekom considers sale of T-Mobile USA division: Observers have long noted that with the consolidation of six major cellular telephone operators in the U.S. down to just four, T-Mobile would be far behind. Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless, and the combined Sprint PCS-Nextel control 90 percent of the market.
T-Mobile USA hasn’t yet made the investment into a 3G network, preferring to bide its time and limited spectrum licenses by pushing for GRPS instead of EDGE and future GPS-based technologies on the data side. The Journal uses sources not noted to estimate $10 billion for T-Mobile USA to upgrade its network. This may or may not include the cost of obtaining scarce spectrum, too.
The sale could raise $30 billion, and any buyer would obtain the second-largest footprint of hotspots in the U.S. with valuable brand partners like Starbucks. It’s unclear whether potential purchasers would have the same commitment to hotspots, however, given the lackluster understanding in the U.S. market by any cellular operator but Sprint PCS (which is using mostly resold locations) and Cingular’s majority shareholder SBC (which has Wayport handling buildout).
It’s not all hotzones, city-wide coverage, and blue skies for municipal networks: Two stories today discuss concerns that cities have with metropolitan-scale Wi-Fi networks.
Richmond, Virg., weighs pros and cons: There are specific concerns, like its hilly topography and the advent of WiMax, and more general issues about whether it’s appropriate for the city to build a network at all or contract it out.
Wilkes-Barre, Penn., considers Wi-Fi network in context of Pa. law: Wilkes-Barre is subject to the law signed last year that requires networks to be built out to a certain level by Jan. 1, 2006, for the grandfathering clause to take effect. Otherwise, a city or town must petition the incumbent provider. The article says there are lawsuits “flying in about a dozen states,” but I’m not aware of those—there are bills, but I don’t know about suits. Also, the article errs somewhat in saying that Philly and Verizon struck a private deal. The law that was passed to prevent non-incumbent-approved municipal networks allows the incumbent to waive their right of refusal. That was done before the bill was signed, but it’s consistent with the bill itself.
King County (of which Seattle is a subset) sells naming rights to giant park to install Wi-Fi: The county spent $165,000 to unwire Marymoor Park, a sprawling 640 acres on the banks of Lake Sammamsih. It’s a great multi-use park, and Microsoft will pay $100,000 for a year’s worth of naming rights to stick MSN on the portal. (Oddly, it’s the closest large park to where a lot of Softies live, so they’ll be advertising to their employees, among many others.) You can take their money, but a county executive spokesman apparently swallowed their marketing pill, too: “It’s a perfect fit, because MSN creates virtual communities, and parks are all about community.”
Portland, Oregon, votes to franchise citywide wireless network: Along the lines of Minneapolis, commissioners voted four to zero to find a contractor to build the network privately and assume the risk. In exchange, the city would be a major customer. The bidding should start in August, and a network could be online in parts by mid-2006.
West Hollywood puts free Wi-Fi across a section of the heart of the city: If it’s successful in luring folks in, it will expand it. The article suggests that this expansion could “possibly mak[e] it the first Wi-Fi city in the nation,” but there are already towns around the size of W. H. that have Wi-Fi throughout.
North of LA, Santa Clarita adds free Wi-Fi in its central park: The costs on this project are pretty reasonable: $7,000 setup and $200 to $300 per year for administration. If it benefits the community, the town will expand coverage. Central Park is used as a staging area for brush fire crews, so it’s a perfect place to have Wi-Fi.
Coeur d’Alene tribe (Idaho) covers reservation: Sixteen Vivato panels are being used to cover the 538 square miles (about 23 miles on a side if a square) on the edge of the Rocky Mountains.
Here’s a cart pulling a donkey story from Houston: A fascinating idea here that Houston will probably build a Wi-Fi network to handle credit-card payments from new parking meters. Building that network will save them money over other alternatives. They might then open that network to the public. Where there are parking meters, there are people.
An LA Times reporter checks out SBC’s Calif. campground Wi-Fi; finds and confirms short range: SBC and the California Department of Parks and Recreation trumpeted the partnership in which SBC installed Wi-Fi throughout the state’s campgrounds. It’s been installed so far in 11 campgrounds.
The reporter talked to rangers and park workers, but hear few success stories. He visited San Elijo and found that of 171 campgrounds, only 10 could get a signal. SBC confirmed to him that the range is only “200 feet,” which means they’re using a single access point.
Ninety businesses attended a prospective vendor meeting for building Minneapolis’s fiber/Wi-Fi municipal network in early June: Vendors like the vagueness of the plan, which sketches out needs without rigidly defining them. That worries me a bit because it means that the vendor has to write an RFP about the RFP, but it also means the city will get a lot of range of options to choose from. Qwest and Time-Warner are interested in submitting a plan, as are much smaller firms.
The plan is still described as “retail”—the infrastructure builder will resell directly to the city, consumers, and businesses. This seems like a mistake. No one provider can receive the maximum return on a closed network. The network should be wholesale allowing the operator to load it fully and allowing ISPs and other firms to resell and bear the cost of customer support at the application layer.
Larry Seltzer suggests that only magic will bring the money for Philly’s project, but that security will sink it: Seltzer raises the very reasonable point that the funding source for Philly’s network has to materialize. The plan requires a combination of grants and non-governmental loans to fund the non-profit’s somewhat optimistic five-year operating plan. Many companies are bidding, but their bids don’t ensure funding, and the city has said repeatedly that they’ll give the non-profit their telecom business but no money.
But Seltzer says that’s just part of the problem. The real issue he raises is the total lack of security in the network as planned. There’s no requirement for encryption of the links, and Seltzer leaps to suggest that unprotected nodes will wind up being launchpads for attacks and spam. They may be unsecured, but they will still require authentication for residential service.
This has been one of my key worries about municipal-scale networks. We know that adding encryption to links reduces throughput by some factor and increases complexity. But without required encryption, you have—under Philly and other cities’ plans—tens of thousands of home users with their data totally exposed to anyone near a local node. That problem has already been dealt with: most mesh and metro system can employ encryption. But it has to be enabled; it has to be a choice; and it has to be done.
More High-Price Access : Swisccom Eurospot will offer hotspots in Hilton hotels in Western and Eastern Europe: The move offers Swisscom Eurospot an entrance into some new...Wi-Fi in Italy : An association of municipalities in Italy and a Wi-Fi company are offering a solution to small Italian towns: The organization and company are...Shakespeare's Birthplace Goes Wireless : Visitors to Stratford-upon-Avon can get an interactive tour of Shakespeare's birthplace: The tourist information office is renting PDAs and visitors...
Skype and Boingo Intro Deal : Boingo says it will offer a subscription for Skype customers to use the service in Boingo hotspots: The news is to be introduced early Tuesday but it...Skyhook Offers Wi-Fi-Based GPS for Soft Phones E911 : Sprint will offer 3G services to cell customers: Their latest customers is TCS, an E911 location provider that works with cellular carriers to...Wayport To Resell Vocera to Venues : Wayport will offer Vocera's VoIP badge systems to hotels, other service-partner venues: This is a nice win for Vocera, which has had rave reviews of...
Testing EVDO : Verizon Wireless has loaned me a card to test, and I like it: For some reason, many of my readers think that I'm opposed to 3G cellular and that I...Sprint PCS Adds EV-DO : Sprint will offer 3G services to cell customers: Their EV-DO service will launch this month and hit half the US population by the end of 2005, the...Finland Chooses Flarion : A couple of days ago IPWireless announced a win in the Czech Republic and now it's Flarion's time in the sun: The winner of the 450 MHz license in...
802.11n Compromise Coming? : Unstrung reports that a compromise is on the way for the stalled group: The two leading proposals aren't in a positions to either win 75 percent...PC World Reviews Six MIMO Routers : PC World applied its usual extensive testing to six consumer MIMO routers (True, beamforming, and multi-antenna varieties): They put Linksys's...True G Drops Price, Antenna : Airgo's True G gear will be less than $100; sports two antennas: True G is Airgo's alternative to True MIMO, which employs multiple simultaneous...
Demos at Forum Meeting : It seems like there's more going on at the WiMax Forum meeting then at the recent WCA conference: Most people I've talked to said there wasn't much...Study: WiMax Not for Big Wireline Operators : A company called Detecon has released a study concluding that WiMax won't be terribly interesting to large wireline operators: Detecon is owned by...Switzerland Plans Spectrum Auction : Switzerland is planning to distribute three broadband wireless licenses: The 3.5 GHz licenses will be nationwide and will be awarded via auction... |