Posted by admin on Jul 24, 2009 in
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Starbucks has opened a store without its name in the title with free Wi-Fi: In Seattle, the home of that is right and good (and trendy) about hot and cold beverage consumption made by the hands of humans, Starbucks opened 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. The Starbucks name is relatively hidden, apparently in small type here and there. The store doesn’t sell frappucinos, it has a manual espresso machine, and it focuses on specialty tastes and custom tweaking of coffee. There’s a Clover there, of course. You can read about the store in greater detail via the link above (Seattle Post Intelligencer) or in this story at the Seattle Times.
And it has free Wi-Fi. My colleague Brian Chin tweets that there’s an attwi network name, but there’s no password required for access. Because the store apes independent and small-chain coffee shops in the vicinity, Starbucks is echoing the free Wi-Fi in those stores as well.
The store is near Victrola Coffee and Art, a store I wrote about in 2005 for this site and the New York Times when the owners at that time chose to turn off Wi-Fi on the weekends. (The WNN story was the most-commented article I’ve ever had on the site, except for a thread complaining about Linksys firmware.)
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 23, 2009 in
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The Wi-Fi Alliance won’t modify its certification tests for the ratified version of 802.11n: Changes aren’t needed, the group says. This was completely expected, but glad to put yet another check in a box. The 802.11n standard will finally move from draft to completed status in September, although a vote taken recently has already formally closed the process.
PC World notes, from a briefing with the alliance, that there are four optional elements to 802.11n that will be certified in the future. Those optional parts were where changes took place after the mandatory elements were settled more or less in January 2007.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 23, 2009 in
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US Airways becomes the latest airline to add Wi-Fi: The airline has over 300 mainline aircraft, but will start in early 2010 with just a few dozen, all Airbus A321s, to see how it goes.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 23, 2009 in
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Skype 2.8 for Mac adds per-minute hotspot access: Skype calls this feature “still in beta,” and it’s been available for months in pre-release versions. The Skype Access feature ties into 100,000 hotspots worldwide, and requires a per minute fee of €0.16 or US 22¢ (including tax/VAT). While that’s high, it’s cheaper than an international call from a cell phone in most markets, and cheaper than paying $4 to $12 for a daypass when you need a few minutes. At $13.20/hr, it’s egregiously high for routine use, even in expensive Wi-Fi markets, so I’m not confident this will catch on. It seems more of a nifty demo. Boingo’s mobile price is just US$7.95/mo with no contract, although it works only with mobile phones; the global plan (with 2,000 minutes per month) is $59. The Skype Access feature is Mac only at present.
Google asks public about its Mountain View service: The Los Altos, Calif., paper says that Google will have a public forum tonight at 7 pm to discuss what it’s learned from a running a Wi-Fi network across Mountain View, and ask for feedback. The service has been in operation since 2006. Punters speculated back then that this was part of a national free Wi-Fi network Google would built out; I was mostly skeptical. About 19,000 users access the network, which consists of 500 access points, each month.
Australian police patrol for open hotspots: Should some volunteer wardrivers do this work, instead? The Queensland police will patrol for open hotspots and then advise residents. The police are concerned about crime happening over open Wi-Fi networks. A detective superintendent says “crooks were now sharing information on satellite maps sowing vulnerable areas with large numbers of unsecured networks.” Remember a decade or so ago, when police were convinced that millions of Satanists were conducting secret rituals? Community education forums and an explanation of how to notice and report network misuse would probably be time better spent.
Wi-Flowers from Toyota: The car firm has giant flowers–apparently solar powered–that have power outlets and Wi-Fi signals. Toyota is touring the 18-foot-tall “flowers” in Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles from July to October. Pictures.
Cablevision expands Wi-Fi in parts of New York: The service, only available and at no cost to its cable broadband subscribers, is now active in Orange and Rockland counties in New York.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 23, 2009 in
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Plastic Logic equips book reader with 3G, Wi-Fi: Some sense at last from Plastic Logic, a future competitor to Sony and Amazon for electronic book reading. The company’s reader is due out next year, and AT&T will be the backend for a 3G connection. But the device will also have a Wi-Fi radio, which may reveal something of the business model. Amazon built a Sprint modem into each Kindle, and apparently bundles Sprint’s download fee into the price of each book.
With Plastic Logic, the inclusion of Wi-Fi implies that delivery fees may vary depending on method. And Plastic Logic’s partners will likely offer tons of free books, which doesn’t make sense for the company to subsidize by paying AT&T something. Barnes & Noble just unveiled its ebook library and reading software (Mac, Windows, iPhone, and BlackBerry), and said it will sell books for Plastic Logic, but potentially other devices, too.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 21, 2009 in
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My pal Nancy Gohring wrote a long feature exploring the unlimited cell offering from Zer01: Is investigative technology journalist dead? Not at IDG News Service, at least. Zer01 has been on my radar since last year, when the firm started talking about an unlimited flat-rate cellular voice and data plan. Each time I heard more about the service, the details had changed, and the offer had expanded to sweep in more and more features, like text messaging.
Let’s just be straightforward here. Even before Nancy had run down the specifics of Zer01, its CEO, and its affiliates and partners’ history, it was clear that there was no way for the firm to be able to do what it claims. Nancy ran down a lot of other warning flags, too. (I don’t link to Zer01 because I don’t want to add to its link score on Google.)
The company has said all along it was using GSM. Only two operators, T-Mobile and AT&T, have substantial enough U.S. footprints to provide the roaming Zer01 would need. Neither firm could possibly wholesale enough bytes at a low-enough cost to Zer01 to allow unlimited service. Zer01 keeps claiming that it is not a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), like Virgin Mobile (one of the last standing), but every aspect of how it works requires that it acts as an MVNO.
The firm told Nancy that it had its own fiber-optic network terminated at cell operator equipment so that the cost of transit charged by the carriers would be nil. But it also said outright that carriers’ cost for the wireless component of the network was essentially nothing, which is simply ridiculous.
Nancy was able to get AT&T and T-Mobile to state on the record that they have no business relationship with Zer01, which puts the icing on the cake.
There’s no such thing as unlimited, except when the cost to a user to obtain unlimited is high enough to restrain use, or the cost to a carrier averages out to low enough that it can make a buck. If you read the fine print on VoIP contracts, almost all have a “fair use” or “reasonable use” number that’s high (thousands of minutes), but not infinite.
The bandwidth caps that ISPs are putting on their networks, like Comcast’s 250 GB/mo limit, are too low (1 TB would be more reasonable), but it’s an attempt to block the 99th percentile users that turn a profitable service into a loss.
Given that the three major 3G carriers have 5 GB/mo caps on usage (T-Mobile doesn’t yet have national coverage for 3G), it’s impossible to see how their networks could be used by a reseller for unlimited data.
Add to that the promise of unlimited voice minutes and text messages. Even with VoIP, calls to another network require settlement fees, typically per-minute termination fees for landlines, and other rates for cell connections. Text messaging is settled across networks as well using peering contracts or clearinghouse services.
If the major carriers are paying per minute and per message to each other, how can a startup relying on their networks have no cap?
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 21, 2009 in
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The 802.11n spec celebrates its seventh anniversary without ratification: The gears at the IEEE grind but slowly, and 802.11n is still not actually a ratified and published standard even though its been built (in “draft” form) into tens of millions of devices, and has a certification standard (Draft N, natch) at the Wi-Fi Alliance. (The alliance is separate from the IEEE, developing standards for testing interoperability of commercially produced devices using the IEEE standards as the basis.)
Wi-Fi guru Matthew Gast, author of 802.11 Wireless Networks: the Definitive Guide (foreword by yours truly), writes on his marvelously named blog that 802.11n has moved up a few rungs of the IEEE hierarchical process towards shedding its draft label.
The 802.11n spec was developed in a process that started with the High Throughput Study Group, which was turned into Task Group N within the 802.11 Working Group, which specializes in wireless LAN protocols. Matthew writes that the working group has now passed the spec upwards to higher-level groups, starting with the IEEE review committee, which meets 11-September-2009. Matthew notes that’s exactly 7 years after the first meeting of the high-throughput group.
In practical terms, this is all institutional process, rather than anything that will result in changes. As far as I can tell, there have been no substantive changes to 802.11n in years, and the less-important changes occur on the driver side, Matthew said via email. It’s also important to note that no device has appeared that implements all the optional parts of 802.11n, and some monkeying around has occurred in those areas.
The draft label should come off in September.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 21, 2009 in
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The New York Public Library opens a room for technology users: The grand anchor of the city’s public library system has opened its special-occasion room, the Edna Barnes Salomon Room, as a “wireless Internet reading and study room.” Starting yesterday, the Beaux-Arts style room will offer seating for 128 patrons. The library will also loan out laptops. The room is 4,500 sq ft, and gorgeous. It sports “16 custom made, solid black walnut tables and dark brown leather chairs that will match the rooms’ dark maple wood floor.” Wi-Fi is free, as it has been at the library and adjoining Bryant park (operated separately) for some time.
Cape Cod vacationers can’t unplug, un-unwire: The Boston Globe writes of the plight of those have jobs, take vacations, and aren’t able to stop working on Cape Cod. Okay, let’s not cry too much for those that get Cape vacations; it’s a marvelous place. But it is sad that a function of modern life and the economy is that people are hunting out free Wi-Fi at 10 pm at night in the parking lots of libraries.
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Posted by admin on Jul 15, 2009 in
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A Lufthansa exec said the airline will reintroduce in-flight broadband using Connection by Boeing antennas still installed: The executive made these remarks today at an airline association meeting near a Boeing assembly plant in Washington state. Lufthansa will have an announcement about specifics next month. FlightGlobal’s Air Transport Intelligence news service says that talks between Lufthansa and a consortium including T-Mobile have ended, and Lufthansa may be pairing with Panasonic Avionics.
Back in 2006, Panasonic tried to get enough planes on board to transition Connexion customers to a new offering. The group wanted 500 aircraft committed to launch its own Ku-band service, using geostationary satellites like Boeing, but with a far lower cost structure and lighter-weight antennas and interior gear. (Here’s my interview with a Panasonic exec back in Sept. 2006.)
Lufthansa equipped about 60 of its long-haul planes, and reportedly had high uptake by its passengers, who could expect that every long flight would include the service. Lufthansa had at least three times as many planes equipped with Connexion as the next airline before Boeing shut the wildly unprofitable service down in 2006.
For its part, ATI reports that Panasonic says it has five airlines signed for eXConnect, its branded Internet service.
Row 44, the only Ku-band provider currently offering service–trials with Alaska and Southwest airlines, with an Alaska rollout seemingly confirmed–is operating only over the US and over sea in its current phase. Aircell, which has air-to-ground operations in the U.S. with an exclusive license, has been talking for months about extending its market via Ku-band service, but that could be through a partner, like Panasonic.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
Posted by admin on Jul 15, 2009 in
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Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport (ATL) would like to offer its passengers free Wi-Fi: Economic conditions don’t allow that switchover, however. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the airport sees 25,000 to 40,000 connections each month, which brings in $1m. If that were the airport’s share, that’s $2-$3 per connection, which seems rather high since many travelers are using roaming systems based on other numbers I’ve seen. Some percentage is paying $8 for a daypass, sure, but that shouldn’t be half.
ATL renewed contracts until 1-August-2011 with three providers, which include Boingo and T-Mobile based on the network’s splash page. A hybrid system is under consideration, where service would be free to casual users, but corporate users would have access to for-fee networks to which they had plan access. The free network would display ads.
Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world, and would be only the second very-large airport, following Denver, that opened its network for ad-supported, free use. Most other free airport networks are in second- and third-tier markets that carry plenty of passengers, but use free Wi-Fi as an amenity to attract travelers away from first-tier hubs.
Copyright ©2009 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please notify us if you find this content anywhere but at wifinetnews.com or wimaxnetnews.com. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission.
