Broadband in Japan is Cheap

Looking at broadband internet connectivity in other areas of the world it is clear in the US we pay much more for much less bandwidth. The US has quietly lost its leadership in the digital world with regards to broadband connectivity to the home.

In Japan you can get 100Mbps for $50.00 per month. I am paying $35.00 per month to Bellsouth for a 1.5 Mbps connection. MuniWirless.com has a quick breakdown of the prices in Japan and makes a importnat point that the US must wake up and provide less exspensvie broadband connectivity to help drive innovation and not fall to far behind the rest of the world in cheap highspeed connectivity to the home.

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New Trojan Steals Online Banking Passwords

This new Trojan combines social engineering distribution through Messenger, and uses the techniques of spyware and phishing.

A new Trojan, Nabload.U, which is distributing itself through Messenger, has appeared a few hours ago. This Trojan downloads another Trojan, called Banker.bsx, which is currently the number one detected piece of malware from Panda's ActiveScan. Its objective is to obtain the passwords of certain banks that it has stored in its code primarily from Spanish-speaking users.



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WiFi RIOT -

The Ruckus Interoperability and Open Testing (RIOT) program was developed to ensure the flawless operation of IP-enabled media appliances, such as set- top boxes (STBs), personal video recorders (PVRs), mobile video players, home entertainment systems and conditional access systems over standards-based, multimedia-purposed Wi-Fi technology pioneered by Ruckus Wireless.


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802.11 mesh products $116 million global market in '06

"Mesh is attractive because of its [low] cost and ease of deployment" Lucero says. Outdoor mesh access points cost $2,000 to $6,000, with an average price of $3,000; roughly 20 nodes are needed to cover 1 square mile, he says.

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FCC Refines Air-to-Ground Auction Terms

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Friday took one step closer to introducing competition in the air-to-ground radio band now used for the seatback phones seen on most airplanes.

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City of Akron 62-square-mile wireless network

The City of Akron is planning to build a 62-square-mile wireless network that will anticipate future technology advancements. The city is starting with a Wi-Fi rollout and will have the capability of adding WiMAX and additional advancements in the future.

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Windmill WiFi

12 November 2005 --
http://www.indolink.com/displayArticleS.php?id=111205035839

According to Nature, the world's pre-eminent scientific magazine, Assistant Professor Shashank Priya of the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the University of Texas at Arlington is successfully using pocket-sized mini windmills to power wireless network of sensors in remote locations.

As Dr Priya himself wrote in an article published early this year in the Japan Journal of Applied Physics, "practically, on-site small scale successful harvesting of electrical energy from wind energy can solve various existing challenges and evolve new applications."

Essentially, Priya's challenge was to develop a windmill with a diameter of just 10cm which works by flexing piezoelectric crystals as it rotates, causing them to generate a current. A 'gentle breeze' of 16km/h is enough to generate the 7.5mW necessary to power a small electronic sensor. Such windmills are designed to solve the problem of powering Wi-Fi kit in remote locations. Geologists, for instance, can monitor seismic activity using wireless-enabled sensors located across large geographical areas.

Priya and other Materials Science & Engineering researchers have created two versions of inexpensive generators utilizing wind power. As wind turns a propeller, a cam on the propeller shaft causes flexing in a series of bimorphs that are arranged in circular or stacked patterns. The researchers have created output power of 5 - 50 mW using wind flow of 5 - 10 mph from their crude but inexpensive - less than $20 - prototypes.

Developments by Dr. Priya and his team have been published in the Japanese Journal of Applied Physics. This week they offered further confirmation as well as details in Applied Physics Letters.

Potential uses of the wind-powered generators include powering remote sensing and communications devices. Most research in this area - small-scale energy-on-demand - has centered on expensive generators such as fuel cells and photoelectric or thermoelectric devices.

Since minor vibrations can also create a charge, Dr. Priya foresees piezoelectric bimorphs being utilized to power a variety of small devices, including insulin pumps powered by the vibrations of a beating human heart or portable radios and CD players powered by the vibrations caused by walking, running or riding a bicycle.

The article this week in Nature says wireless networks have freed us from miles of cumbersome wiring needed to carry information, but the electronic 'nodes' of such networks still need power. If geologists want to place hundreds of sensors on a mountain to monitor seismic activity, for example, they either have to supply electricity using cables or hike out to each sensor every six months or so to replace batteries.

"The problem is keeping the nodes powered all the time," says Priya, adding that wind power could be the answer.

Priya says there are four possible ways to address this problem (1) Enhance the energy density of the storage systems (2) reduce the power consumption of the wireless nodes, (3) develop self-powered nodes by generating or scavenging power and (4) develop other novel methods for powering the nodes.

Priya explains: "Out of these various possible solutions the most efficient and practical method is to develop self-powered nodes by scavenging energy from the wasted mechanical vibrational energy. The largest source of vibration energy around us is Wind. Trapping the vibration energy from wind energy to generate electricity at small scale can evolve a new generation of distributed power sources."

Priya's group is already a leader in the piezoelectric energy harvesting technology with various harvester prototypes, “Piezoelectric Windmill” and “AutoPiezo”. His windmill is about 10 centimetres across,and is attached to a rotating cam that flexes a series of piezoelectric crystals as it rotates. Piezoelectric materials generate a current when they are squeezed or stretched, and are commonly used to make a spark in gas lighters. Priya has found that a gentle breeze of 16 kilometres per hour can generate a constant power of 7.5 milliwatts,which is more than enough to keep an electronic sensor running. He unveiled his windmill earlier this year,and has now followed up with precise details of the device's abilities.

Priya has an undergraduate degree from Allahabad University (1996) and a graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Science (2000), Bangalore. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

francisassisi@hotmail.com

Nintendo's Wi-Fi Rollout

For the first time, characters from the Nintendo universe will be playable online, as part of a unique wireless community, accessible inside or outside the home.

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New Homes Come Standard with Wi-Fi

Wish you had a digital home of the future, complete with wireless networking and home controls? Playa Vista, Calif., may be the place to be

Each resident on move-in day will find a top-of-the-line wired backbone which allows for voice, data, broadband Internet and digital cable in every outlet in every room; a wireless network including a Linksys router with broadband Internet access provided by Comcast; and TiVo-ready jacks, so no additional holes need to be drilled or wires need to be run. The electric wiring can support Internet-enabled appliances and high-end entertainment systems, and can be upgraded to a wireless home-monitoring system that can do everything from control the lights to adjust the stereo.

"When you move into Playa Vista," says Derek Fraychineaud, vice president of Residential Construction, "you have a home LAN, a built-in intranet. You can hook up five, eight, ten computers and have wireless capabilities right from day one. You have digital cable TV, Internet access -- and you have the ability to build on that system. In other words, you have the digital infrastructure."

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HomePlug will deliver a 200-megabits-per-second

With the growth in speed from the newest wave of g-MIMO (Super G with Multiple Input, Multiple Output) antenna technology boosts wireless coverage so well, who needs it? I feel there is a place for this technology to help augment and further enhance connectivity options availalbe to home today. I am currently looking at different floor plans for a potential house I would like to build within the next couple of years. Do I need to completely wire it with CAT 5 or use the traditional electrical wiring?

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802.11i secures wireless LANs

The new 802.11i improves on WEP by using completely new encryption algorithms and key-derivation techniques. This wireless security standard, finalized in 2004, makes it possible to safeguard over-the-air communications at Layer 2.

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Another Article on Evil WAP Twins

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In an evil twin attack, a malicious hacker steals users' signals by deploying a wireless base station that sends a stronger signal than the legitimate WAP. The "evil" base station masquerades as the real Wi-Fi network, inviting users to log on over bogus prompts so the attacker can access their data.

Dell & Padcom Public Safety Solution

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"This offering reinforces the solution approach that is increasingly required by organizations implementing wireless networks to achieve real-time access to vital data and information," said Scott Stone, CEO of Padcom, Inc.

ClearWire Blocking VOIP Calls

This is a concern I have had for some time. I currently have two VOIP lines in my home office. One from Vonage and one from Packet8 running over my Bellsouth Fast Access DSL line. Is it illegal for Bellsouth to block the ports that these VOIP services use? I am still using the local phone as my internet provider I have just move my voice service away from Bell.

Read the story about one Clearwire customer. Full Story

Homeland Security & Infrastructure Protection

Experts at the CTIA show last week call for homeland security, wireless industry cooperation.

Five security experts, during a panel discussion at the CTIA (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) Wireless 2005 conference, called for industry and government officials to cooperate on setting up effective warning systems for terrorist attacks and natural disasters and better wireless interoperability for emergency responders. Jim Dailey, director of the office of homeland security for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), notes that police and fire officers responding to a disaster often have to carry several radios and a bullhorn to communicate effectively. Ron Sege, president of Tropos Networks, argued that metropolitan regions might benefit from wireless mesh network "hot zones." Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the wireless industry created Wireless Priority Service (WPS) to give emergency responders priority over other communications on a wireless network. Panelists also criticize E911 services; Ed Thomas, an FCC engineering chief, says he only got a recorded message when he tried to call 911 on his wireless phone.

Story from Computer World

Combo - EDGE/Wi-Fi access

As Joanie Wexler points out in her weekly newsletter Cingular has started a WiFi/Edge Service that should be attractive to busy mobile professionals who need to stay connected. I do not understand why Verizon Wireless has abandoned it's relationship with Wayport last year and drop any support for WiFi service option because they fell EVDO will trump the WiFi revolution. Not sure about that will shall see.

Today's focus: Cingular couples EDGE, Wi-Fi access

By Joanie Wexler
The hard part about choosing between cellular and Wi-Fi services is the tradeoff between speed and coverage. Wi-Fi is grand if users are able and willing to go to the location where the high-speed network is. Cellular works particularly well if users can tolerate sub-megabit speeds, because broadly deployed cellular networks basically come to wherever the user is.

That's why the idea of having devices with dual-mode radios and the intelligence to pick the fastest network available has been alluring. In this spirit, Cingular Wireless launched what is believed to be the first national unlimited EDGE/Wi-Fi data service plan at this week's Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) show in New Orleans.

The mobile network operator says its customers can now access data at either 4,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the U.S. or via its Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) network domestically in 13,000 cities and towns. EDGE service is also accessible internationally in about two-dozen countries (nine of which are in Europe) via roaming agreements Cingular has struck with other carriers. Generalized Packet Radio Service (GPRS) service is available in about 80 countries where EDGE is not yet available, according to the company.

Cingular's Wi-Fi connections are provided through agreements with SBC, Wayport, Concourse Communications and StayOnline, and available on Cingular's own Wi-Fi networks in several airports and train stations. Dual-mode Wi-Fi and EDGE access is available for $99.98 ($79.99 for EDGE plus $19.99 for Wi-Fi). Customers purchasing a two-year contract with the unlimited plan qualify for a free EDGE PC modem card valued at about $249.99, Cingular says.

Note: For EDGE-only users who roam the globe, quad-band equipment that works in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world is available: the Sony Ericsson GC83 and Sierra Wireless Airlink PC cards for laptops, as well as the quad-band Treo 650 handheld.

German Government Agency Launches Wireless VoIP Network

LightPointe, a designer and manufacturer of optical wireless products based on free-space optics (FSO) technology, today announced that the Landratsamt Main-Tauber-Kreis District Office in southwest Germany has deployed a VoIP network via multiple optical wireless connections.

The German government agency's wireless VoIP network includes five LightPointe optical wireless links that integrate the voice and data services for various satellite offices into the main district office. The mission-critical point-to-point network connections support key government functions, including health services, youth welfare, and forestry commission. The optical wireless network covers a one-kilometer radius near Stuttgart. Landratsamt Main-Tauber-Kreis District Office provides government services for more than 135,000 residents.

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National broadband policy?

I agree with one of the FCC Commisioners, Michael Copps. In his recent online article he points out some very good reasons for forming a clear national broadband policy.

Big changes are reshaping the telecom industry. Giant mergers--SBC Communications acquiring AT&T, Verizon Communications swallowing MCI--raise huge questions about how consumers will be affected. More local-government efforts to create their own broadband networks are facing fierce resistance from the Baby Bells and cable companies such as Comcast.

Inmarsat Inmarsat satellite broadband service

The first of three Inmarsat I-4 satellites is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, next Thursday, and will be the largest commercial satellite in the sky, company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Sukawaty said in an interview Tuesday.

I-4 is the fourth-generation of Inmarsat satellites, and will be the backbone of the company's Broadband Global Area Network, offering at least 10 times the communications capacity of the current network. The new satellites will allow the company to offer data speeds of up to 432K bits per second for uses such as video-on demand, video conferencing, phone, e-mail, LAN, Internet and intranet services, it said.

'WWiSE' Consortium and Motorola Team for IEEE 802.11n

"Motorola believes the IEEE 802.11n standard is an important building block for offering connectivity to high bandwidth services in the home and enterprise environment," said Miguel Pellon, vice president technology- standards, Motorola, Inc. "We believe our experience in making applications such as mobile VoIP and mobile multimedia streaming operate in handheld devices and our expertise in power saving mechanisms strengthen the WWiSE proposal for 802.11n."

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Mobile voice over Wi-Fi at 80 miles per hour

The world's first highway Wi-Fi mobile voice network has been successfully tested on a US interstate highway – the Canamex Interstate Highway (I-19) from Rio Rico to a point south of Green Valley, Arizona. Wi-VOD deployed it using a Department of Homeland Security grant; the network is managed by the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council. Get this: Wi-VOD claims it was able to make multi-party VoIP conference calls at speeds in excess of 130 kilometres per hour (80mph) sustained over the entire network.

Read additional Comments from MuniWireless.

Mesh Networks, who was recently acquired by Motorola can sustain broadband IP connectivity at speeds up to 250 miles per hour and should be able to support VOIP calls similar to what is mentioned in this article.

Broadband as a Public Utility

I am currently in Memphis Tennessee traveling for business and here in my residence Marriott hotel room I have high speed internet access, that is free but for $149.99 per night is it really free? Is internet access really becoming a utility like water, gas, electricity? A basic commodity that everyone relies on. I don't think so just yet. Most of the people that think it is have used the internet for many years, but I think there are still many sections of the population who still do not live to get online everyday. Unfortunately like I do!

Check out the free press community internet web site for some interesting details on many of the states who are aggressively moving to restrict open wireless and wired broadband network deployments.

Extra stuff to read.

Flying Meshbox

The South Witham mesh recently staged a pioneering experiment using a micro-light aircraft, testing the operation of the mesh in airborne environments. Showing that the mesh will work between a flying node and multiple ground stations lets mesh operators consider many more innovative applications for the mesh. The flying mesh achieves greater range and helps to communicate with remote ground-stations.

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Wi-Fi software enables on-the-go workgroups

Colligo Networks Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, has unveiled Colligo Workgroup Edition 4.0. The software can establish a virtual connection between several Wi-Fi devices without the need for a central server.

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Motorola Previews iRadio

Planned for launch later this year, Motorola iRadio will allow Internet broadcasters to extend their services to the places where people listen to and enjoy music the most, Motorola said, such as in the car or while jogging.

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New Cellular WLAN Architecture Extends VoIP Infrastructure

After reading a article about the new Family of Products from www.merunetworks.com that will deliver Toll-Quality wireless VoIP for Wi-Fi and Dual-Mode Cellular/Wi-Fi Handsets, reminds me of a paper I wrote two years ago for my graduates studies exploring the possibilities of using existing cellular infrastructure with WiFi access points. The continued evolution of VOIP and the convergence of voice and data will force the existing wireless carrier to embrace this move to a all VOIP infrastructure. Is it possible to have a all VOIP Wide Area infrastructure that would provide similar coverage to what Verizon Wireless offers now? I believe it is, it may take 20 years.

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Texas bill restricts municipal broadband and more

Very interesting bill being tossed around in Texas. I haven't had time to fully read the entire document, but this doens't sound good for wireless broadband systems in Texas. Read the bill

One blogger says that the language in the bill is so broad that it would prohibit free wireless access in parks and libraries. Read more.

Wireless Broadband @ 35,000 feet.

connexion by boeing

After flying a little more these days I wish Southwest would offer in flight net access. Connexion by Boeing provides real-time, high-speed Internet access to air travelers in flight. Each plane equipped with the Connexion by Boeing service offers either an Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) connection or a wireless 802.11b network connection, or both.

Verizon to Buy MCI for $5.3 Billion

Verizon on Monday has announced it will acquire long-distance telephone company MCI for $5.3 billion to accelerate its efforts to serve multinational corporations, marking the latest in a series of telecommunications mergers.

MCI was formed as Microwave Communications Inc. in the 1960s and was acquired in 1998 by WorldCom, a Mississippi long-distance telephone reseller that acquired about 60 companies in the 1990s. It became a Wall Street darling with stock market capitalization of about $200 billion before buckling in bankruptcy in 2002 amid an accounting scandal.

WorldCom emerged from bankruptcy last year, using the name MCI.

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Mile-High Wi-Fi Gains Altitude

GoRemote Internet Communications, Inc., a leader of managed remote network solutions, today announced an agreement with Connexion by Boeing, a business unit of The Boeing Company, that will deliver secure, in-flight access solutions to GoRemote's enterprise customers. This agreement furthers GoRemote's goal of transforming Wi-Fi into a secure and valuable extension of the enterprise network.

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800 Rebanding will begin as Nextel, FCC Agree to Swap

As Glenn Fisherman puts it "This will give Nextel a contiguous chunk of spectrum that makes their system easier to operate while improving the public-safety bands near which Nextel equipment interoperates. It should make operations much simpler for everyone involved.

Nextel gets $2.06 billion in credit for the spectrum they give up and will pay at least $2.8 billion in migrating public-safety users’ equipment to newer spectrum and systems.

Who gets the public-safety contracts? Those will be interesting companies to follow with an infusion that large flooding the market over a short time period."

Check out Wall Street Journal article.

Nextel Turning Off The Lights On Flarion Trials

With Sprint now controling Nextel they have decided to officially end the, what I thought, a succesful trial.

It was known that they were also testing other technologies, including EV-DO, though, without as much fanfare. Nextel even admitted in the fall that the North Carolina Flarion trial had gone past the stage of being a technology trial, to a marketing trial, making many believe an official deal with Flarion was imminent.

Then came Sprint. As soon as Sprint and Nextel agreed to merge, people expected the talk of Nextel using Flarion to disappear quickly. Sprint was already hard at work deploying EV-DO, and it seemed likely that Nextel would leave Flarion behind and eventually move its own iDen customers to the combined EV-DO network once the two companies merged.

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Portable Hotspots

This category is starting to expand as manufacturers realize that once someone tastes Wi-Fi, they don’t want to back to no-Fi. Jesse Drucker, subbing for Walt Mossberg, writes in The Wall Street Journal about testing two different gateways on the road and at home. As is typical, the basic functions are fine and security settings are a bear.

Journal tests NetGear, D-Link portable gateways, read the full story.

The Myth of Municipal Wi-Fi Networks

The report from the NMRC is called “Not In The Public Interest - The Myth of Municipal Wi-Fi Networks — Why Municial Schemes to Provide Wi-Fi Broadband Services With Public Funds Are Ill-Advised.” has a very long title but may be worth reading.

Download the full Report

Why Muni Wi-Fi Is a False Hope

Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are just three municipalities exploring the use of Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) technology to build wireless broadband networks with an eye toward providing “free” or substantially discounted wireless Internet access to businesses and individuals.

The theory goes like this: With widespread wireless Internet access available to anyone, local economies will boom and jobs will come to the city in droves. Though this classic something-for-nothing panacea may sound like a sure-fire winner, it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny: U.S. cities have a poor track record with telecommunications services. There also are other reasons that make it unlikely the promised municipal Wi-Fi utopia will ever materialize.

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SBC Makes $16 Billion Bid for AT&T

By now everyone has heard this big news. SBC Communications announced today its plans to purchase AT&T in a US$16 billion deal. If approved, the acquisition would create the largest communications firm in the U.S. with an estimated $70 billion in annual sales. I don't think AT&T is worth that much, but AT&T does have a great brand name that has been around a very long time. Bellsouth made a bid for AT&T severla years ago as well. The Baby Bells grow up to be larger than Ma Bell. How the times have changed.

Another very interesting twist to this news is AT&T might still relaunch AT&T Wireless. AT&T retained rights to the name after AT&T Wireless was gobbled up by Cingular. Even more confusingly, AT&T announced that they’ll be leasing capacity on Sprint’s network

Muni-Wireless: The Battle Continues

Somewhere between politics and protests, practical solutions usually can be found. Those who prefer practicality to rhetoric can often avoid the slings and arrows of political fortune and chart their own course to a desired end.

According to eWeek
Opinion: Intel's interest in the debate over municipal wireless is a welcome twist in an issue so bogged down in free-market rhetoric it's forgotten about the market.
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Bluephone's Wi-Fi future revealed

It appears BT is trying to successfully converge Cellular and WiFi networks. I do not agree how they are going about it. It would make sense for an existing wireless carrier to utilize an existing infrastruce and piggy back WiFi onto it. BT doesn't have a Cellular network and will rely on a GSM resell agreements for the cellular piece and deploy WiFi hotspots. Am I missing something? Please read

How does Bluephone work?
The original idea for Bluephone was to have a normal cellphone which can send calls via a special Bluetooth base station when inside the house or office. BT chose Bluetooth for the job, because it supports cordless telephony, is less power-hungry than Wi-Fi, and is almost universally available in mobile phones.

Bluephone is a consumer service, and BT intends to deliver it on absolutely standard cellphones.

Wi-Fi To Hurt 3G Profits, Study Says

By Mobile Pipeline -

Increased competition from different types of wireless access will mean that wireless operators won't profit from deploying 3G networks as much as they had expected, according to a study released Wednesday by market research firm Strategy Analytics. In particular, Wi-Fi hotspots, which are being aggressively priced and sometimes are offered free, will put a significant hit on 3G profits, the study says. The study said that as much as $12 in profits that cellular operators expected could be lost because of this trend.

"It is not only a question of lower cost alternatives for high-speed wireless access, but of more intense price competition for an expanding number of operators," Harvey Cohen, Strategy Analytics' president, said in a statement. "Operators, including Verizon, Cingular/AT&T, and Sprint/Nextel will make more than $100 billion in investments into advanced wireless capabilities over the next four years, but the returns may not be as high as initially expected due to the growing intensity of competitive forces."

On the positive side, lower prices will stimulate demand, although probably not enough to please wireless operators, Cohen said.

WiMax technology have been hugely overhyped?

I have a degree in Economics and time to time I read articles from the Ecomnomist.com online magazine. I stumbled upon a very interesting break down of WiMAX technology. I think WiMAZ is a little overhyped for now. We shall see in five years if WiMAX is widely deployed.

In urban areas WiMax does not make sense, since it will be uneconomic compared with cable and DSL, argues Kenneth Furer, an analyst at IDC. “It's not going into New York, Los Angeles or London,” he says. It is also too expensive for use in the developing world, at least for the time being, since early WiMax access devices (which must be fixed to the outside of a building) will cost around $500; other forms of wireless link, such as mobile-phone networks, will remain a cheaper way to connect up remote villages.

Great story, check it out

Philly CIO: Public Wi-Fi Needed To Close Digital Divide

Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer (CIO) stated in a interveiw with David Haskin "I'm not at liberty to divulge the final business model, but it is something that hasn't been done in other places," Neff said. "And we're doing what the voters elected the city (officials) to do: We're investing in the future. To be a twenty-first century city competing in a knowledge economy, you have to invest in technology."

Wi-Fi, With A Dash Of WiMAX
While some cities have left the door open to 3G for their municipal networks, Neff said that Philadelphia's network initially will be based on 802.11b, with WiMAX being used for backhaul from access points to an Internet backbone. She estimated that WiMAX will handle about 60 percent of the backhaul, with fiber and T1 handling most of the rest.

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'Evil Twin' Haunts Wi-Fi Users

The Evil Twin is essentially a wireless version of a phishing scam where users think they're connecting to a genuine hot spot but are actually connecting to a malicious server, which can then extract information such as bank details. The attack can be carried out by anyone with the right equipment in the vicinity of a legitimate base station.

Networkcar(R) and Motorola

Networkcar's system collects and organizes detailed performance and location-based information directly from a vehicle's engine computer and a global positioning system (GPS), respectively. This information is then transmitted wirelessly from the vehicle to a network operation center, and with the click of a computer mouse, made available online for fleets to monitor items such as current location, fuel consumption, mileage, emission status and speed. More Info.

Wisconsin seeks vendors for state-wide Wi-Fi

Wisconsin is one of those states that recently enacted a law (Wisconsin Act 278 which entered into effect on July 1, 2004) placing restrictions on municipalities that wish to offer telecommunications services. For additional information about the RFP that Wisconsin has requested click here.

The state wants to put together a list of vendors that municipalities around Wisconsin can choose from to deploy their citywide Wi-Fi networks. In order to qualify a vendor must, among other things, be willing to establish roaming agreements with other vendors, so that users of a city network can seamlessly roam onto another city's network.

Balloon goes up for rural broadband

News from across the pond over in England. High altitude balloons and unmanned solar-powered aircraft may be the key to rural broadband, if a major European Union project is successful. Over the next year, Capanina intends to develop aerial links capable of delivering up to 120 megabits per second to anywhere in the world, transmitted from aerial platforms hovering up to 22 kilometres above the ground.

Dr David Grace, principal scientific officer of the project and member of the Communications Research Group at the University of York, said that the aerial platform approach had some unique advantages. "802.16 may have a 70-kilometre range, but that has to be line of sight. The chances are there'll be a building in the way, but you'll always have line of sight to a high altitude platform,"

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Intel is Moving forward with WiMAX

Intel has out alot of R&D into the IEEE 802.16 standard, WiMAX provides metropolitan area network connectivity at speeds of up to 75 Mb/sec. WiMAX systems can be used to transmit signal as far as 30 miles. However, on the average a WiMAX base-station installation will likely cover between three to five miles. Check out Intels WiMAX web site for additional info.

Motorola unveils two new Push-to-talk phones

Motorola has unveiled two new GSM Push-to-talk phones: the C698p and C381p. The C698p is a candybar-styled handset, and is the more fashionable of the two phones. It features triband functionality, dual high-audio speakers for MP3s, integrated VGA camera, and preloaded games. The C381p is a professional phone with the ability to synchronize calendar and contacts with your computer using Motorola's Mobile Phone Tools software. The C381p also includes an integrated speakerphone. Both phones feature a dedicated Push-to-Talk key. Read more from the Motorola press release. Pictures and more information about the C698p and C381p can be found on the WAPZON website.

Yahoo Going Push To Talk

Yahoo is about to add Push To Talk to Yahoo Messenger. I have been a long time yahoo messenger user and preferr it over msn and aol IM services. According to Andy Abramson who has a good VOIP blog site says there is a company in Chicago with an expertise in PTT that may be getting a deal with Yahoo. I am researching for additional information that I will post later.

FCC Chairman Powell to Step Down in March

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Friday he plans to resign after four years of mixed success in pushing a deregulatory approach to the telecommunications and media industries. Full Story

RF fingerprinting pinpoints location

Pinpointing wireless clients makes it easier to secure and manage wireless LANs. However, traditional technologies used for indoor 802.11 location tracking come up short on accuracy. Full Story

WLAN standards alphabet

There are plenty of other WLAN advances completed or in the works. Some of the lesser-known or more recent standards work on 802.11 are:

802.11d, multi-country roaming: Old by WLAN standards, the working group finalized 802.11d in 2001. It's a way for WLAN access points to broadcast what country they're in and what country-specific rules client network interface cards have to follow. You can fly from New York to Rome, walk into your office or hotel, fire up your wireless laptop and expect to connect with whatever WLAN is open.

802.11F, inter-access point protocol: The capital "F" designates a "recommended practice" not a formal standard in IEEE parlance. The basic idea was to create a way for access points to talk among themselves and to transfer data associated with a connection quickly from one access point to another. But WLAN vendors already have figured out how to do this on their own for their own access points. The document was published in mid-2003, but so far is not being embraced. "There are a set of technical issues that make this (hand-off) difficult," says Andrew Myles, manager of wireless standards for Cisco Systems's Wireless Networking Business Unit. "As far as I know at this point, no one is planning to support it."

802.11h, dynamic frequency selection, and transmission power control: the original idea for 802.11h was to create a set of management messages for access points and clients in the European 5-GHz band to coordinate efforts to avoid interfering with radar and satellite communications in the same band, Atheros' Li says. The WLAN devices select another channel and adjust power output if needed. But these same actions can be used to improve WLAN efficiency, quite apart from any specific regulatory rules, according to Li, as more countries open more 5-GHz bandwidth for use by 802.11a WLANs. The standard was final in September 2003. Products with some of these features might start appearing soon. Some elements of this work are being carried into another standard, 802.11k.

802.11j, use of the 4.9- to 5-GHz spectrum in Japan: Originally, this group's work was focused on making changes to the 802.11 media access control and 802.11a PHY layers to gain Japanese regulatory approval in this band. But Li points out that the FCC recently allocated this same band for licensed spectrum set aside solely for public safety and homeland security. The 802.11j work on how to use this spectrum could prove useful in the U.S. as vendors introduce products for public safety networks in this band.

802.11k, radio resource management: Launched in late 2002, this project will standardize an array of radio measurements, dealing with roaming requests, an array of data about the radio channel and data about the client devices. In addition, this data can be made available to higher-level WLAN management applications, where the information can be used in tasks such as optimizing performance and balancing traffic loads. Task Group K is sifting through some 1,000 comments that members submitted on the proposed standard during a recent ballot, says Clint Chaplin, wireless standards lead at Symbol Technologies. Completion is likely in mid-2005. According to Cisco's Myles, the Wi-Fi Alliance will launch a testing and certification program for 802.11d and k next year.

802.11r, fast roaming: Handing off clients quickly from one access point to another with their authentication and security policies intact becomes critical when clients are moving, such as VoIP calls made with handheld WLAN phones, Chaplin says. This group, launched in 2004, is creating a standard way to make roaming fast, so that users don't have to re-authenticate at each new access point or have their calls disrupted, he says.

-- 802.11s, wireless mesh for access points: Formed in early 2004, this group is creating a standard that will let access points act as routers for wireless data, forwarding traffic to neighboring access points as Internet nodes do today with a series of multi-hop transmissions. Such mesh networks are inherently more reliable because they can route around failed nodes, and can adjust to balance traffic loads and optimize performance. The members still are sorting out their approach and schedule. Symbol's Chaplin says the first call for proposals likely will be next month.

In the clouds over municipal Wi-Fi

City wide WiFi projects giving residents wireless broadband access is a hot topic among local leaders. Many towns and cities are planning networks and as Aaron Nutt, puts it; "Wi-Fi is no longer a 'coffee house' technology and represents a potentially serious disruptive challenge to the current wireline-based broadband market." read the very interesting perspective from Thomas Hazlett. Full Story

Cisco Systems to Acquire Airespace

Cisco Systems, Inc., today announced a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Airespace, Inc. of San Jose, Calif. Airespace is a provider of wireless local area networking ("WLAN") systems, which provide a secure, flexible, and cost effective solution for enterprise and commercial customers. Airespace's product portfolio will expand Cisco's WLAN solution portfolio, accelerating delivery of key WLAN features and capabilities for Cisco's entire customer base. Airespace's product portfolio includes WLAN controllers, Access Points, WLAN Management and Location Software, and Security capabilities, including IDS. The acquisition will allow Cisco to address a broader set of market segments and integrate advanced capabilities into current Cisco products. Press release from Cisco.

Radio Hams at Risk from Mains Broadband -Magazine

Many power companies have been exploring for some time now the possibilities of using their power lines for broadband internet access to their customers created additional revenues stream for them. Which sounds good on the surface, but their may be some very harmful concerns from old school ham radio operators. Read the full story for more details.

Intel To Lobby In Support Of Municipal Wi-Fi Projects

Intel needs muni-Fi in order to push mobile and fixed WiMax. An Intel spokesperson tut-tutted about lobbying, but said Intel would use its influence. Which is, ah, let’s see. Well, close enough, but we’ll be happy to watch King Kong fight Mothra from a distance.

Sean Maloney, executive vice president of Intel's Communications Group, told the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA) conference in San Jose that Intel would work to get municipalities and telecommunications vendors to cooperate on developing wireless access instead of being adversarial.

Link to story

Verizon Thinks EVDO Trumps Wi-Fi

If Verizon is really looking at EVDO as a single mode delivery mechanism over which they deliver a variety of services, they’re out of step with what SBC (and Cingular, as a majority-owned partner) is telling the industry is the future: integration across DSL, Wi-FI, and cellular, with applications layered across all three modes of delivery to their customers. Customers seek the right kind of bandwidth for the application rather than stapling the application on top of the bandwidth that the firm has available.

Among other trends, Verizon Wirelss seems to have missed the VoIP train and the increasing trend for bandwidth heavy and low latency services, and those applications could trump video on a tiny screen wherever you want it. Link to Story

Verizon's victory in Pennsylvania will be short-lived

This is a news story that first ran over a month ago but It describes how the Incumbent Carriers still have to much monoplistics power.

"For now, apparently, Philadelphia and Verizon have come to terms to let the Wi-Fi project go ahead as planned, albeit with a one-year time limit for Philly to complete the rollout. But a new Pennsylvania law allows incumbent carriers to block such projects in the future and also leaves the remaining Pennsylvania municipalities at the mercy of having to partner with incumbents like Verizon." Full Story

Oracle Unveils Mobile Database

Mobile technologies have moved well beyond the realm of sales force and field service workers, Oracle contends, with adoption by the defense, national security, and health and public safety industries, which require centralized control and application access among their mobile device users. Full Story

802.11n - “Pre-n” or Not “Pre-n”, That is the Question

Some equipment vendors, notably Belkin, have released products claiming to be “pre-n", while other providers of the technology are more cautious: chip-maker Airgo claims approval for its design by governments around the world, for example, but does not use the n-word. Full Story

Verizon's VCAST: Video Over EVDO Phones

“3G is here – we are delivering true 3G services to our customers; this is not a plan for services on the horizon, this is about now," said Denny Strigl, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.

Starting February 1, Verizon Wireless customers will be able to use new handsets to access VCAST’s video on-demand service, viewing current news, weather, sports and entertainment programming. They will also be able to download and play cutting-edge three-dimensional games on powerful new handsets. Customers will also be able to watch music videos and short programs specifically designed for mobile phones and other video applications on their handsets.
Full Story

Motorola's Canopy Wireless Broadband Products for EU

Motorola's design and proprietary technology incorporate a global positioning system (GPS), multiple layers of encryption and interference protection. Canopy radios are small, easy to install and unobtrusive, which are appealing benefits in historic and notable architectural locations. The Canopy solution has been designed from a feature and price perspective for Internet service providers and private networks operators to deliver broadband to residences and businesses. Service providers will be able to offer increased data speeds, performance and quality of service to their customers, including high-quality voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).
FULL STORY

Alvarion Developing Mobile WiMAX System

WiMAX equipment vendor Alvarion said Thursday it is creating a mobile wireless broadband system based on the still-unratified 802.16e standard.

The first equipment certified as meeting 802.16 standards " better known as WiMAX " is expected in the first half of this year. However, WiMAX has received criticism for not having a mobile component. The 802.16e standard, which provides mobility, isn't expected to become final for at least a year. Full Story

Wi-Fi Digital Media Player Designs from BridgeCo

BridgeCo (http://www.bridgeco.net), a leading provider of digital home entertainment networking solutions, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show today that it has developed two turn-key reference designs for high-performance digital media players (DMP) with wireless LAN capabilities. Read the full story

T-Mobile, Kodak Team on Wi-Fi Photo Sharing

Kodak and T-Mobile today announced an agreement to simplify online picture sharing using Wi-Fi outside of the home or office.FULL STORY

Wireless Relief in Tsunami-Torn Regions

This is week old news but I feel it is important to post it anyway for readers who can help with relief efforts in the Tsunami affected regions.

For more information or to discuss a donation of funds, equipment, or your expertise, contact Mike Outmesguine by email “mo at wifi-toys.com” or voice: +1-818-889-9445 ext. 102
UPDATE: Here is a video of that interview in Windows Media and RealPlayer format..

Voice to Text for SMS

Forget That Thumb-Board, Samsung Lets You Talk Your Text Messages Into Your Phone I am one of those lazy mobile phone users and think that this one might make my life even lazier. I hate typing. Apparently, all I have to do is speak. Let me me know what you think about voice to text. Up to now we have only had text to voice.

Welcome - First Post

This blog will focus on wireless and mobile data solutions. All things wireless will be discussed and check back often for the latest news and updates on WiFi, 802.11, 3G, CDMA EVDO, GSM Edge/GPRS, WiMAX, hotspots, RFID, and other emerging wireless technologies.

Free feel to contact me at send any news, suggestions and other information to wirelessdatainfo at yahoo.com.

Thank you.