WiFi NEWS

December 28, 2006

Thanks to the seemingly ubiquitous nature of wireless connectivity, many of the promises of new options for consumers and business made in 2006 will be realized in 2007, according to experts surveyed by internetnews.com.

Companies that made headlines in 2006 will again hold the spotlight, including AT&T, Sprint Nextel and Vonage . And cellular carriers will embrace past competitors as old technology is upgraded.

With nearly
(more…)

December 19, 2006UPDATED: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Robert McDowell is standing by his recusal from the agency’s AT&T-BellSouth merger vote, declining an invitation to break the 2-2 deadlock over the $80 billion deal hung up on network neutrality conditions. McDowell, nominated to the FCC by President Bush on Feb. 6, is the former lobbyist for a trade group of AT&T and BellSouth competitors opposing the merger. Since taking his
(more…)

Matzan has done a superior job in tying together the technical, political, and legal reasons why it’s just so darn hard for OS developers outside of major, proprietary, for-fee releases (i.e., Windows and Mac OS X) to obtain the necessary pieces to support any given Wi-Fi device. (Mac OS X is quasi-proprietary: Large parts of the system are dependent on open-source and related software, but Apple keeps many elements of its system private.)

(more…)

(release not yet on site): The company will ship the Wireless USB Extender, a four-port USB hub that connects via UWB to a USB dongle on a computer, for $249 in January. Of course, last January, they said, “Cable-free USB 2.0 extension is a reality for…Gefen…The unit…marks the initial release of UWB-enabled product for the US market.”

Ha, ha! Just kidding! We meant, January 2007! Last year’s product, which they
(more…)

I happened to interview an EarthLink exec a few days ago on non-Wi-Fi topic during the middle of the city negotiations. He sounded a bit weary. The talks have lasted months, and they’re still haven’t agreed on the final details of what will be offered for free, and what network charges for for-fee service will be.

A project to unwire the 910 square miles of Oakland County pushed to mid-08 completion: The project was intended to offer
(more…)

Panasonic made the surprise announcement a few months ago that they were considering launching a Connexion successor which would use a lighter-weight set of gear (less weight = less fuel) and a smaller antenna (less drag = less fuel) that would allow them to charge less and also push a lot more bandwidth over the same Ku band satellite connection. They would also have a much lower transponder bill in their formulation. Boeing isn’t involved in this successor effort, but is supportive of the notion.

(more…)

New Orleans set up its own temporary network through donations and its own efforts following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation, but a combination of state law and overall cost seem to have led to them picking a private company to handle details. EarthLink offers a 300 Kbps connection for free across the 20-square-mile network, and will continue to do for the indefinite feature. A faster, 1 Mbps service is available at the usual rates ranging
(more…)

December 20, 2006When is a mesh network not a mesh network? Colgate University in central New York State knows. It recently completed the rollout of a campus wide outdoor network using Tropos Networks’ MetroMesh equipment — but none of the units are meshing. “We just wanted maximum throughput,” says Rich Grant, the associate director of technology planning for the liberal arts school. “We have backhaul on all the Tropos access points. That’s
(more…)

December 19, 2006It’s not enough to setup a city-wide, Wi-Fi-based, mesh network. You have to keep track of it. That’s why companies that make the equipment, like Tropos Networks and SkyPilot Networks, are announcing partnerships with companies that can keep track of the traffic they generate. Tropos is partnering with NetNearU (NNU). The NNU TRACKOS management platform has already been deployed with some Tropos networks, including the big setups
(more…)

December 18, 2006Staccato Communications calls it “a first for ultrawideband.” The chip maker is working with South Korea’s SK Telecom and some unnamed partners to make phone handsets that use UWB technology for a variety of uses. The goal: Turn the phone into the central computing platform for the user, as well as to kick off what Staccato calls Personal Area Social Networking (PASN). Such phones could actually start trickling into the market in
(more…)