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Muni-Fi: Poised for Success or Failure?
InformationWeek's Richard Martin dissects the state of metro-scale Wi-Fi: He offers up some insight gathered across a few cities in California, and has some excellent information from EarthLink about their re-evaluation of how city-wide Wi-Fi can work financially. Among other things, EarthLink has changed its model to turn a profit with 12 to 15 percent resident uptake instead of an initial--and pretty ridiculous--20 to 25 percent. I hadn't seen that initial number before, and I'm glad they've reduced their target. But this emphasizes what Martin discusses in this article: a combination of city anchor-tenant services combined with residential Wi-Fi is the only way to go. I'd go further and say that any Wi-Fi service provider that doesn't have a strong business offering for broadband wireless over fixed WiMax or similar technology has no hope of turning a buck. The three major early providers--EarthLink, Kite, and MetroFi--all expect to sell business services....
BBC Airs Program Claiming Wi-Fi Signals 3x Higher Than Cell Base Station
BBC Panorama airing on Monday night in the UK fans fears of health risks from Wi-Fi through bad interpretation: As the Guardian points out, not only are the classroom measurements discussed in the program 600 times below the level that the government expresses concern at, the measurement of Wi-Fi signal strength and a cell base station signal are made at different points. The measurement for Wi-Fi is at 1 meter, and the cell base station at 100m. At those disparate differences, Wi-Fi comes out three times stronger. I haven't seen the program, as it hasn't aired yet, and in parts of the program description online, it makes it clear that they are measuring exposure within the classroom to Wi-Fi and exposure at the same location to signals from the mast; in others, they appear to be making an apples-to-apples comparison. The entire basis of the program appears to be using the many studies of mobile phone emissions and resulting health effects and applying them against Wi-Fi on the basis of this erroneous measurement. The Guardian doesn't note the other specious element. The point isn't a cell base station radiating to a user, but the cell phone someone carries produces a signal that reaches the base station. No measurement appears to have been taken of a cell phone in use. Lest we forget, the Guardian writes, "The Health Protection Agency says a person sitting within a Wi-Fi hotspot for a year receives the same dose of radio waves as a person using a mobile phone for 20 minutes." Scientists quoted in the program apparently say that using thermal effects--heat produced by exposure to electromagnetic radiation--to determine risk isn't enough to, well, determine risk....
Ruckus Latest Shout-Out: Small and Medium Sized Business Gear
Easy configuration, low cost, no RF experience required, the company says: Ruckus Wireless, an ahead-of-the-curve wireless gear maker that, until now, has looked to bridging metro-scale networks into homes and distributing media around a house over Wi-Fi for IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) providers as its key markets is expanding into the SMB space, offering small-to-medium-sized businesses a new line of easy-to-configure, inexpensive products that can achieve enterprise-like results. In a briefing last week, CEO Selina Lo said, "We saw that for the SMBs, there's a big need for a complete wireless LAN solution made simple -- so simple that you don't need IT operators." A problem that I've heard consistently expressed by SMBs is that with no or few full-time IT staffers, enterprise-scale WLAN technology is not just an order of magnitude too expensive, but would require too much in-house expertise to run. "There are lots of companies from 50 to 500 people -- they still need completely secure and robust and critical Wi-Fi solutions," Lo said. Lo said that the company will have three offerings: auto-discovery access points, including their existing 802.11g ZoneFlex 2925 access point, which is ready to work with their new system, and a planned 802.11n addition in the third quarter; a controller, called ZoneDirector, that manages and directs the functions of APs, as well as handles authentication; and FlexMaster, a remote administration tool, which will ship in the fourth quarter. The 802.11g access point lists for $259; an office-building oriented model (2942) will ship in July for $349, and sport power over Ethernet and a plenum-space fire rating. The ZoneDirector 1000 series comprises three models that manage a maximum of 6, 12, or 25 access points, and cost, respectively, $1,200, $2,000, and $3,500. They ship in July. The 802.11n access point and FlexMaster tool have not yet had their pricing set. Lo said the company will also offer a starter pack of six 2925 access points and the entry-level six-AP ZoneDirector for $2,000, a discount of about $750 off list. The company has also developed a simple security alternative that occupies a niche between WPA/WPA2 Personal's preshared key and the authentication server-driven WPA/WPA2 Enterprise system. They call this Dynamic PSK, and say patents are pending....
Congress Works to Correct Nonsense in FCC Count of Broadband Users
The U.S. has ridiculous standards by which they count a broadband user: It's pretty absurd, but 200 Kbps in a single direction qualifies as a broadband line in our country. Now, that's just how the methodology is defined, and the methodology can be changed. There's now proposed legislation that would require 2 Mbps as the baseline for service to be counted as broadband, and revamp how counting in an area is performed. Right now, a single user in a Zip code tract--a tract that doesn't mesh with the USPS's Zip codes, according to some researchers--with broadband service means the entire Zip code region is counted as broadband-capable. The bill would also require the NTIA, our spectrum agency, to offer the information in searchable form. The head of the cable industry association said that the industry was addressing concerns over broadband, noting that Comcast recently demonstrated 100 Mbps cable service. That's garbage, of course; the issue is about universal availability of broadband, not the speed in limited areas. By pretending that 200 Kbps is broadband, companies and lobbyists are allowed to talk about broadband generically, when better-than-dial-up is what's in place....
Wi-Fi Database Offers GPS Coordinates
Skyhook Wireles launches Wi-Fi-based positioning system: The company has a new name, but CEO Ted Morgan said in an interview last week that Skyhook's intent in the same: using the location of Wi-Fi access points to pinpoint urban and suburban locations just as a GPS (global positioning satellite) receiver would. (You may remember Skyhook as Quarterscope back when they won a cellular industry award in spring 2004.) Skyhook has assembled a database of information about 1.5 million access points across 25 major cities in the U.S. by driving every street in every city. Their software records multiple data points per sample for directionality. Fire up their software on a laptop, and it compares the Wi-Fi information it sees with what's in the Skyhook database, popping out a latitude and longitude within 20 to 40 meters. The APs they rely on aren't per se public: they're the Wi-Fi gateways operated in homes and businesses that spew their unique identifiers and signal characteristics far beyond a home or an office building. Skyhook tethers itself to the high number of fixed-location gateways to deliver urban GPS-like reliability with lesser certainty as one reaches into less-dense suburbs. Morgan said that in most cities, there are "8 to 15 APs at any given point to use." The baseline scan they performed is dynamically updated based on client software, too. If a number of APs can be detected at a certain location, new APs or ones that don't conform to the data can be added and updated. This happens constantly. "The user environment itself is maintaining and updating" the location database, Morgan said. Skyhook's first announced partner is CyberAngel Security Solutions, which operates a laptop recovery system. The CyberAngel software already uses Internet protocol address tracing and other tools once a laptop is powered up. Add in GPS-like location awareness, and CyberAngel may be able to call the police with a street address to find a missing device. Morgan stressed that Skyhook sees itself, as it has throughout its two-year development process, as a complement to GPS, providing the same kind of information in areas where GPS works less reliably or where the cost of a GPS receiver is prohibitive for the purpose. The company has a trial in Boston of a fleet of 50 vehicles in which both GPS and Skyhook software is in use to better provide continuous location and direction information. It's also easy to see this as an add-on to car navigation systems in which Wi-Fi can be used to transfer new information to cars along with its use as a sensor, or a car could even be equipped with a 3G cell uplink that's part of the overall system. The Skyhook software requires Internet access to reach the backend database, but Skyhook will also have versions that compress a kind of signature of its AP information into about 7 megabytes for more lightweight devices. 7 MB used to seem enormous, but cell phones are shipping with gigabyte hard drives and Webcams, so it's not as big a bar to entry as it used to be. Morgan also sees a use for his system with voice over IP systems that now face E911 requirements. He says that Skyhook offers the only reasonable way for a mobile soft or hard VoIP phone to provide continuous location information. Morgan hopes that location-awareness becomes a routine tool that gets integrated into software and Internet applications. Because so much of the Internet has become increasingly focused on local content and targeted advertising, it's of better utility to a user and better value for an advertiser to know exactly where someone is--but, of course, only if they want to reveal that....
Who's Hot Today? Cincinnati; Henderson, Ky.; Tokyo; Marshalltown, Iowa
Cincinnati, Ohio, tries sponsorship model: A small firm in Cincinnati is gathering sponsors to fund free Wi-Fi in a number of places around town. Roadrunner is handling installation. The article describes the founder calling it a public/private partnership, but it's all private businesses involved so far, although they will apparently be gaining access to public buildings and spaces to deploy the hotspots. Henderson, Kentucky, just in time for blues festival: Downtown Henderson has free Wi-Fi at the riverfront and two parks. This allows visitors to W.C. Handy Blues and Barbecue Festival to have Wi-Fi with their ribs. Tokyo, Japan, will have 2,200 power-line mounted access points: The Livedoor Company is setting up the network around Tokyo charging less than $5 per month (¥525) for unlimited access. Fuji Television will use the service to send video back from Tokyo locations to its studios. It commences in late July within what's described as the entire JR Yamanote Loop Line commuter train's service area by October. Lievdoor wants 1 million customers. They'll invest ¥700 million (US$6.5 million), but plan ¥10 to ¥15 billion (US$90 to $140 million) for a national service. [link via Keio Oyama] Marshalltown, Iowa, puts out 20 blocks of Wi-Fi--first free hotzone in the state? Esme Vos writes about Marshalltown, Iowa, which is claiming bragging rights for the first free Wi-Fi hotzone offered by an Iowa city. It's a 50-50 public/private partnership behind the group that's installed the service. Businesses and government are collectively trying to make the town for attractive to development....
Who's Hot Today? Rochester (maybe), Winston-Salem Airport (Piedmont)
Rocheseter, N.Y., considers downtown Wi-Fi: A business development group is studying whether offering Wi-Fi (free, fee, sponsored, or other models) would be beneficial to the city's downtown. (When I worked for Kodak, not out of Rochester, the rumor was that George Kodak had chosen the town because it was so often gray, thus making it easier to produce film. Just another jealous tale told by Buffalo residents, I'm sure.) Piedmont Triad in the Winston-Salem, N.C., area unwires: Opti-Fi turns on Wi-Fi service at the local airport on Tuesday. The cost is $2.99 for 15 minutes and 25 cents thereafter or $7.95 per day. Opti-Fi is partnered with other companies for resale, however, including their recent T-Mobile HotSpot deal. Downtown Winston-Salem has had free Wi-Fi since March 2003....
Cingular Sensation
Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless approved: There's ton of analysis about the voice side, but less so on the data part. Cingular was starting to roll out EDGE (100 Kbps or so real world) in 2002, but obviously slowed way down. AT&T Wireless now has a national profile of EDGE service, instantly available to Cingular, despite some mandated sell-offs of spectrum licenses for merger approval. AT&T Wireless has offered awfully expensive Wi-Fi in a few select locales, such as the Denver and Philadelphia airports, and six Northeast Corridor Amtrak train stations (Baltimore onward north). Cingular has no Wi-Fi plan to date, but SBC--Cingular's majority shareholder--has the best Wi-Fi hotspot plan. T-Mobile's footprint is better, but SBC is pursuing DSL, cell, VoIP, and hotspot synergy. SBC said recently they expect in 2006 to offer Cingular cell phones that can opportunistically use Wi-Fi networks to carry voice traffic as needed. With better national coverage, the largest cell customer base, and a solid plan, Cingular and SBC could become dominant in several markets all at once. All by offering what people want like rollover minutes and unlimited Wi-Fi for $1.99 per month. What a concept....
Rio Rancho to Get Wireless Data, Voice Network
A partnership between the city of Rio Rancho, New Mexico and private companies will result in a citywide wireless network: The network will use access points from Meru, wireless backhaul from Proxim, and billing and operational support from LogiSense. A 25-year agreement allows Azulstar Networks, the service provider, to install network equipment on utility poles, buildings, and other city infrastructure. Intel, which has a lab in Rio Rancho, is also offering access point locations and support. This arrangement may prove to be the ideal relationship between private companies and cities. The city is involved in the project as far as supporting it and offering access point locations. But it doesn't appear to be using taxpayer money to fund it. Funding comes from private investors. Yet, residents will benefit from the network. Subscriptions start at $19.95 a month for 256 Kbps service, a comparable speed to DSL yet less expensive. The network will also offer unlimited voice over Wi-Fi service for $24.95 for calls anywhere in the U.S. and Canada. Look out local telco, real competition may be at your doorstep. The network is expected to cover 103 square miles and be operational by March....
IPass Acquires Mobile Device Management Company
IPass announced plans to acquire Mobile Automation, a company that helps IT departments manage and secure remote devices: IPass plans to integrate Mobile Automation's technology with its own policy enforcement software plus technology acquired along with Safe3w. IPass hopes the result will let IT departments secure and protect remote devices....
Mall-Fi Increases: Pentagon City
The Pentagon City mall gets Wi-Fi, free for now: The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City is just one stop from the Pentagon's Metro station and only a handful from the central areas of D.C. The mall's operators will run Wi-Fi in common areas for free initially, and plan to charge $3.95 per hour up to $49.95 per month for access. Mall-based Wi-Fi access is becoming increasingly common as malls compete with other "third places" (there's work, home, and somewhere else) to draw in customers. If people start flocking to street-based shopping areas because it's easier to do business there, the malls can suffer. I've found in my research that mall operators typically do a horrific job of explaining whether Wi-Fi is available, where to use it, and what it costs. You'd think they might want to promote it on the Web site as much as in person. A restaurant in Seattle states it best on their front facade. A banner reads in big type, "Free Wi-Fi is Here!" In tiny letters they add, "while dining."...
Another Wi-Fi Detector
Hawking will release a more directional Wi-Fi detector: It's big, it's $35, and it looks like a Star Trek communicator (old style), but it's designed to offer more directionality and differentiate between Wi-Fi and other 2.4 GHz transmissions. However, it's not really much of an advance (if at all) over the Chrysalis WiFi Seeker, which is small, slightly less expensive, differentiates Wi-Fi from other electromagnetic radiation, and is pretty directional. What I'm waiting for (and Gizmodo is, too) is a detector with a small LCD that scrolls through the open and closed SSIDs found in the neighborhood. We want a WiFi Sniffer--a WiFi Wardriver on a keychain. [link via Gizmodo]...
Hot...Hot...Cold! Cold! Cold!
Carol Ellison tells a good story about the travails of trying to work at hotspots: Her story is familiar, but she tells it well. She's trying for a little productivity--paying nothing for it in one case, and using a fee-based service in the other. She can read the tea leaves--or coffee grounds--by watching her fellow laptop users frustration levels rise, or when they pack up and leave. Still, she does manage to eke a few productive hours out of a few more of trying--and that might be more than any of us pull off in an office. For irony, she buys the television show The Office on DVD....
Blog Business Summit in Seattle (Jan. 2005)
The Blog Business Summit will take place in January 2005, focusing on how to use Web logs in, for, and around business: I mention this Jan. 24-25 event partly because Wi-Fi Networking News is a business blog of sorts--we're advertising supported through relationships with Jiwire and Google AdSense--and because I'll be speaking at the event. I'll talk on topics that include building a successful and profitable content blog. Summit"> 05 Badge 1" width="137" height="17" />...
Mobile Hotspots with Backhaul
It's a trend: several people have built usable Wi-Fi hotspots that use a variety of techniques for backhaul to bring access to performance venues, outdoor events, and disaster sites (reg. req.; get generic user/pwd): The latest wrinkle is a musician and tech entrepreneur who uses an old TV transmission van to connect to his wireless broadband receivers around town. He has transceivers on top of skyscrapers used to bring point-to-point wireless to his Implex.net customers, but coincidentally offering him backhaul for art and music projects. The article also talks about bikes, mopeds, and golf carts equipped as hotspots. With the addition of a system like that from Junxion, any vehicle with a cigarette lighter within cell data range can become a mobile hotspot, too. And then there's the planes, boats, trains, and buses coming down the pipe. Escape Wi-Fi? Never! Not even if you want to....
Buffalo's SOHO Virtual Private Network Wi-Fi Gateway
Buffalo has packed a VPN into an 802.11g gateway to allow remote access: GoToMyPC.com and other services have shown that individuals and small businesses need remote access to their desktop computers while away from their home or office. The Buffalo Airstation Wiireless Secure Remote Gateway--known more concisely as the WZR-RS-G54--has a PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol) VPN server built in to allow remote connections back to the wired and wireless LAN connected to the gateway. In an interview, Buffalo's vice president of product marketing and public lreations Morikazu Sano noted a fact I didn't find in the press release: multiple remote users can essentially relay via the gateway to exchange files in a secure fashion. The gateway is the gating item for bandwidth, of course, but both remote users can use it as an endpoint instead of using email or other tools. A service menu in the remote software will let you find which other users are connected. The device will support dynamic DNS, since many home networks have ever-changing dynamic addresses. It also has the very nice Wi-Fi feature that lets you separate out users on the WLAN: each Wi-Fi user has a separate tunnel to the Internet connection, meaning that users don't see promiscuous traffic on their link. (This doesn't disable sniffing, but it does mean that with WPA-PSK enabled, users can't see each other's traffic.) Included software supports Wake-on-LAN allowing a remote user to wake up their slumbering desktop machine. The device will cost about $200 and ships this month. Buffalo likes to contrast that price point with the $20 per month cost of GoToMyPC.com....
Proxim Follows Alvarion Lead on Calling New Hardware Pre-WiMax
Proxim's latest point-to-multipoint hardware, the Tsunami MP.11 Model 5054-R is an interim stage on the road to full WiMax compliance: As Alvarion said back in June, so, too, Proxim is riding the WiMax name wave while providing a product platform they say is committed to future compliance when a standard for certification is finalized. Proxim has taken the additional twist of defining WiMax applications as opposed to WiMax hardware. That is, they look to public safety and last-mile broadband wireless to the home as types of services that WiMax will enable. What's not said in this article nor in Proxim's press releases is the cost and availability of upgrades to full WiMax compatibility. We had to push with Alvarion to get them to state clearly that each contract with each purchasers of an Alvarion system had specific language and commitments as to the WiMax upgrade. It's not a "free" part of buying pre-WiMax, but a negotiation issue. With Proxim, none of the materials mention costs or negotiation, and it's possible that they're much more bullish than Alvarion that the WiMax certification will only require software and firmware, but not hardware upgrades. The Tsunami MP.11 was used in the Washington State Ferry system on-board/waiting area test that I wrote about for The New York Times back in July. Hidden in press release is a bullet point mentioning that this equipment supports mobile receivers and 125 mile per hour handoffs! Now that's a technology you can build alongside railroads and highways. The system uses the 5 GHz band with 20 possible non-overlapping channels. Proxim also announced several point-to-point bridges designed to extend range while maintaining low latency and high throughput....
Hertz Puts Wayport in the Driver's Seat
Wayport adds Hertz rental car counters to Wi-Fi World; navigation systems will show Wayport locations: On Tuesday, Wayport will announce a deal with the Hertz Corporation that allows Wayport to operate service at more than 50 Hertz rental car counters and waiting areas at airports in the U.S. The Hertz locations will be part of Wayport's Wi-Fi World, a set of retail and customer-facing chain locations that are resold to service aggregators at a fixed monthly cost instead of a per-session rate. SBC is an early customer for Wi-Fi World, and will have the opportunity to add Hertz locations to their current pool of Wayport hotspots. Wayport picked Hertz as a partners as much as vice-versa. Dan Lowden, Wayport's vice president of marketing, "We've been talking to a lot of different brands, and we've selected key brands in each category that we're going after." Hertz is the leading brand for airport rental cars, especially in light of their premium business members. Wi-Fi service will be available both in parking lots and waiting areas, allowing a traveler to access the service before getting out of the car on return or leaving the lot. Lowden said that Wayport will manage the Hertz locations, providing a co-branded login screen through which Hertz customers can pay for sessions or subscribe. As the Wi-Fi World reselling efforts expand, Hertz locations could be part of a subscription for SBC or other providers, too. Wayport sells its own in-house unlimited service offering for $29.95 for a one-year commitment for all of its directly served locations, and $49.95 for month to month. This offering is more a convenience than a competitive one; they expect their partners to drive usage. Hertz will not become a Wi-Fi provider in this deal; they're looking at making their customer experience more appealing, not acquiring a new line of business. The other part of the Hertz deal is the integration of Wayport's hotspot locations into Hertz's onboard navigation system, Neverlost. (Note to brand managers: never, ever choose a name that can be mocked with the addition or omission of a single letter.) Lowden said, "You'll be able to search for Wayport and it will actually give you driving directions and help you navigate directly to the nearest Wayport location." That might be a McDonald's or a hotel....
Wireless Projector Has Complex Setup, Good Results
PC World reviews NEC's LT265 with 802.11g connectivity: The reviewer says it's not a bad projector, but the complexity of setting up a wireless connection are frustrating. Still, once the details are worked out, the LT265 provided good remote projection and control for $2,500 device. The projector can control a PC, and a laptop can project to multiple projectors. The reviewer notes that NEC recommends its own, very expensive 802.11g card to use with a connected laptop, and doesn't offer tech support for other 802.11g products. The device can only support 802.11b connections through an ad hoc hookup; an 802.11g router is required for that level of performance from a remote laptop....
Intel Will Add Wi-Fi Back into Pentium 4 Chipset in 2005
The Register is reporting remarks from a Taiwan talk by an Intel marketing head on the return of Wi-Fi into future chipsets: Intel was supposed to deliver integrated Wi-Fi and access point technology in its latest Pentium chipsets, but failed to in part because of delivery schedules and manufacturers' disinterest in the Wi-Fi component. The Register says that Sunil Kumar revealed the next Pentium 4 revisions called Lakeport and Glenwood would ship in the second half of 2005; the roadmap for these chips includes a Wi-Fi module. Whether access point functionality will be included is unknown, but reporter Tony Smith notes that these particular P4 models are aimed at a digital home marketplace....
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