November 15, 2006In what the companies are calling a strategic alliance, Microsoft will be working with MetroFi to bring “locally relevant MSN content and services to MetroFi’s advertising supported, free Wi-Fi network throughout Portland, Oregon,” according to a statement issued today. They’ll be using Microsoft’s adCenter platform to help advertisers get placement with MetroFi. The local paper, the Oregonian, describes the
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November 15, 2006As municipal Wi-Fi deployments continue to gain momentum, Cisco Systems wants to be there for the providers and carriers trying to answer a request for proposal (RFP). Its solution is called ServiceMesh, a bundle of all of Cisco’s outdoor wireless offerings. “We’ve seen cities ask a provider to answer an RFP with some kind of equipment provider [as partner],” says Joel Vincent, senior manager for outdoor
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November 15, 2006Wisair and Y-E Data earlier this month announced the launch of Y-E Data’s YD-300 four-port ultrawideband hub, which is based on Wisair’s chipset and reference design. The product has been certified by TELEC (Telecom Engineering Center), Japan’s wireless certification organization. It’s the first ultrawideband hub product to be certified in Japan, and the first to be launched commercially.The four-port hub is intended
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November 15, 2006StayOnline, one of the early proponents of unwiring as many hotels as it could for business travelers, is being bought out by LodgeNet Entertainment Corp., a company that installs TV and broadband services for hotels. The acquisition will cost $15 million cash. The deal, expected to close in early 2007, will give LodgeNet control of Internet services to 175,000 hotel rooms across the U.S., five times what it has today. StayOnline
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November 14, 2006The co-founders of Novarum have given themselves a rather unique mission. Instead of pontificating about what’s happening with wireless IP data/voice networks in big cities, they’re actually going to measure just how useful those networks are for end users in accomplishing what they call “meaningful work.” Managing partners Phil Belanger and Ken Biba worked together at Vivato (they left before it imploded). Belanger’s
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November 13, 2006A “critical vulnerability” exists in the driver running wireless client chips from Broadcom of Irvine, California. The company is the number one Wi-Fi chipmaker, providing silicon for laptops from Dell, HP and Gateway, plus third party Wi-Fi network cards. The problem is a stack-based buffer overflow that attackers could use to hijack a computer, even via a wireless connection. It’s found in the driver file BCMWL5.sys, and can be
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November 9, 2006In a deal likely to foreshadow future agreements between makers of digitalmusic players and content companies, Microsoft (Quote) said itwill pay Universal Music Group (UMG) a cut of each upcoming Zune devicesold.
Expected to launch Tuesday, the Zune player faces stiff competition from Apple’siPod, which dominates the digital music market. Microsoft hopes to emulate the iPodand iTunes success by offering the $249.99 Zune in conjunction with aWeb site where consumers can purchase music.
November 9, 2006The physical layer of the 802.11a and 11g standards has an “unavoidable packet loss issue,” according to vendors VeriWave and Aruba Networks. VeriWave discovered the issue this past summer during product testing, and reported it with Aruba to the IEEE 802.11 Working Group’s meeting last September. “One of our tests is a throughput test, which is defined in wired and wireless worlds as the maximum forwarding rate with zero loss,” says
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November 16, 2006Patent fun! The techniques used by just about every WLAN in the world were patented back in 1996 by an Australian governmental body named CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation). With a U.S. patent, no less. In 2005, CSIRO sued Buffalo Technology for infringing upon that patent. And this week, a Texas court gave summary judgement in agreement that Buffalo infringed. Other companies have brought two suits
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November 16, 2006Shortly after announcing a Boston-area roll-out, TowerStream now says its Hi-Vi T1+ (short for wireless High Availability T1+) service is ready for metro Chicago. $600 per month gets a business a high-speed wireless backbone to the office with promise of five nines, AKA 99.999% uptime. That translates to less than one minute of no connectivity per month. Hopefully in the dead of night. They do this by having two base stations for
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