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Pipex to start WiMAX trials in UK
The times they are a-changin': Stratford-on-Avon is where the Old Bard wrote and staged his plays, but now it is the location of Airspan's facilities, where during the past few weeks Pipex was testing its WiMAX solution. The tests were successful and the company is set to offer its WiMAX services in three U.K. locations. Pipex is already in discussion with the authorities in these locations.
Graham Currier, Pipex's project coordinator, said the the tests showed that it was possible …
Russian WiMAX gains ground, if slowly
To Russia with love. As wireless technologies such as GPRS, EDGE, WiFi, and ADSL are gaining acceptance among Russian customers, WiMAX is slowly--very slowly--inching forward as an alternative wireless offering, according a Cellular News report. Here is a short list of Russian companies which have launched, or are about to launch, WiMAX services in the land of Tolstoy:
- Prestige-Internet (which is controlled by the Netherlands' Enforta BV) last month completed …
Free WiFi comes to NYC parks
Remember those missionaries who went to Africa to do good and did very well? Nokia shows us that one can do good and do well at the same time. The company is sponsoring free WiFi connection in 10 New York City parks in hot spots operated by New York start-up WiFi Salon. WiFi Salon will operate the hot spots under a concession agreement with the city which runs until October 2007, but which is renewable. It is not exactly that the announcement infuses new meaning into the adjective …
WiFi to the rescue
EarthLink has contracts in eight U.S. cities to provide municipal WiFi service, including hurricane-ravaged New Orleans. Although the network will not be ready until early September, local officials say that they have every intention to make the WiFi system a central component of the city's law enforcement, emergency, first response, and business continuity plans in the city. In other cities, too, the push for muni-WiFi has been supported in part as a means to make more efficient the …
ZigBee stirring
ZigBee has not been dormant, but what with the noise accompanying each and every announcement relating to WiMAX or WiFi, the forward march of this decidedly more modest technology has been conducted largely under the radar. We should take note, though, because a forward march there is. For example:
- Earlier this year announced its intentions of becoming an important ZigBee player by paying $200 million to acquire Chipcon, the first company to offer a 2.4 GHz 802.15.4-compliant …
SPOTLIGHT: Are WiFi users freeloaders and table-hogs?
Are WiFi users freeloaders and table-hogs?
Perhaps this topic will not be placed before the Oxford Union, but it is nonetheless a good discussion topic for your local debating society: Last week we reported that more and more coffee shop have concluded that offering free WiFi does bring them additional business; in fact, they see a worrisome trend: WiFi users bring their own sandwiches to the shop, and in addition to not ordering anything, they also occupy tables …
ALSO NOTED: Latest version of Alcatel's IP comm server; Free WiFi access at Japanese air base; and much more...
> Alcatel is showing the latest version of its Alcatel OmniPCX Office, its IP communication server for small-to-medium sized business. Report
> Planning to stay at the Kanto Lodge at the Yokota air base in Japan? Bring your laptop: They now offer free WiFi access. Report
> Queen City, AZ is going WiFi. …
BellSouth expands WiMAX coverage
BellSouth Wireless Broadband Service is expanding its services to several more cities in the Southeast--Melbourne, FL, Chattanooga, TN, Greenville, MS, Charleston, SC and Albany, GA. The company will be using the 2.3 GHz WCS spectrum, which it is already using to offer service in Palatka and DeLand, FL, New Orleans, LA and Gulfport, MS. (note that in Athens, GA, the company is using the 2.5 GHz Broadband Radio Services spectrum).
Mel Levine, BellSouth's director of product …
EarthLink's muni-WiFi challenges in Anaheim
Atlanta, GA-based EarthLink was created in 1994 as a dial-up provider, but has since become a major player in muni-WiFi: It has eight contracts so far to provide cities with WiFi service, with the two largest being Philadelphia and San Francisco. The company currently offers broadband service to slightly more than five million subscribers, but Garry Betty, the company's president and CEO, says that when all contracts are fulfilled, the company will have more than 25 million homes serviced …
Slow takeoff for 802.11n
The arrival of new standards is typically preceded by assertions, at times extravagant assertions, about the promise and potential they hold. 802.11n is no exception. Some companies do not wait for the standard to be finalizes before offering pre-standard gear--and also rushing to make all kinds of proclamations about the capabilities and benefits of the pre-standard gear and its future compatibility with and upgradability to standard-certified gear, once the standard is finalized. …
Trend: Dutch hospital deploys WLAN
The healthcare industry was among the first to adopt WiFi, and as the quality of wireless transmission improves and the security of such transmissions bolstered, hospitals are beginning to increase their reliance on WLANs for an ever greater number of services and missions. Walcheren Hospital in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, has 350 beds and 1,300 employees. The hospital has just deployed an enterprise-grade WLAN from trapeze Networks in its cardiology department and pediatrics …
Starbucks launches Summer Scavenger Hunt
Have nothing to do this summer? Starbucks has the solution: The company yesterday launched its Starbucks Summer Pursuit, also called Scavenger Hunt--a game players play using their cellular phones or PDAs. The game relies on intelligent image recognition which reads, or understands, the player's responses to clues. Players will have to decipher a series of clues and answer trivia questions sent to their phones and PDA--and their responses will have to be given either in images or in text …
SPOTLIGHT: We'll always have Paris
Too bad for the French to have lost to Italy in the World Cup's final. Let's hope they find solace in their capital city's aggressive plan to develop 400 free hot-spots--63 public libraries, 200 public gardens and squares and 40 district offices of the city hall--where the French public will have free access to the Internet. We reported on the city's ambitious plan two weeks ago and IDG's Peter Sayer offers a useful update. Mayor Bertrand Delanoe takes the plan very …
ALSO NOTED: Handheld Europe shows off new PDA; Free WiFi in Pomona?; and much more...
> Handheld Europe is showing its new TDS Recon-X series, an 802.11g-capable rugged PDA. Report
> Pomona, CA, is mulling the idea of a free downtown WiFi, and a few companies involved hold a WiFi demonstration to gauge the reaction. Report
> Microsoft dismisses as "speculation and rumor" news that the company was planning …
FierceWiFi July 5, 2006
- BSkyB to offer free broadband
- Woosh, NZ government clash over WiMAX rollout
- Fujitsu shows mobile WiMAX SoC
- WiFi to grow by leaps and bounds in China
- Serious vulnerabilities in Cisco's WLANs
- SPOTLIGHT: City of WiFi
- ALSO NOTED: United to offer in-flight WiFi; New Orleans uses WiFi for storm prep; and much more...
BSkyB to offer free broadband
Rupert Murdoch's satellite broadcaster BSkyB is getting set to unveil its plan to offer free broadband to some of its U.K. customers on July 18. BSkyB indicated its interest in broadband last year, when it spent £211 million to acquire high-speed Internet provider Easynet. Easynet has been installing its own network equipment at BT exchanges, which means that, by December, Easynet will be in a position to offer service to about half the U.K. population.
"Unbundling will allow …
Woosh, NZ government clash over WiMAX rollout
Here is a story from a small corner of the world, but which, as WiMAX spreads, we may encounter more and more closer to our own precincts. Auckland, New Zealand-based operator Woosh wanted to roll out a WiMAX network in New Zealand. The company has acquired blocks of contiguous portions of the spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band, and has entered negotiations with companies which own other blocks in the spectrum, and now believes it is in a position to begin and offer WiMAX service to …
Fujitsu shows mobile WiMAX SoC
The inexorable march toward mobile WiMAX continues. Last week Fujitsu Microelectronics Europe used the occasion of the 2006 Wireless Communication Association conference in Washington, DC to show its mobile WiMAX system on chip (SoC) solution. The solution is 802.16-2005 compliant.
The company says the mobile WiMAX SoC features scalable 1024 fast fourier transform (FFT) OFDMA PHY and full MAC processors; adaptive modulation schemes which include 64QAM, 16QAM, QPSK, and BPSK; an …
WiFi to grow by leaps and bounds in China
During the next three years, the Chinese market for WiFi technology will likely grow four-fold, experiencing a 45 percent annual growth rate. A white paper written for the WiFi Alliance by Chinese market research group Analysys International says the growth will be driven by deeper penetration of broadband and falling prices of WiFi-enabled laptops. The market for APs, network cards and other non-embedded WiFi equipment will be worth about RMB 10 billion by 2008.
The white paper …
Serious vulnerabilities in Cisco's WLANs
Cisco has warned that the company's WLAN management applications suffer from several serious vulnerabilities, one of which allowing remote users to log to the network using the default administrator's password. The company listed six specific vulnerabilities and said it offers work-arounds to some but not all of them. The most serious vulnerability is an undocumented username and hard-coded password, which could allow a remote user to access the WCS database. The database holds …
SPOTLIGHT: City of WiFi
Forget that "City of Light" moniker: Paris wants to be known as the city of WiFi--more specifically, it hopes to be known as the best-connected capital in the world. Bertrand Delanoe, the city's mayor, said the city will strategically place more than 400 access points around the city to offer free access to the Internet. The city will also offer tax breaks to companies laying cable in city neighborhoods as part of the mayor's plan to have at least 80 percent of the city's buildings with broadband connection by 2010. Report
ALSO NOTED: United to offer in-flight WiFi; New Orleans uses WiFi for storm prep; and much more...
> United Airlines will begin to offer WiFi service on some of its flights. The airline is beginning to offer the service after Verizon Airfone said it would no longer offer in-flight phone service to United passengers after the end of the year. Report
Going WiFi
> New Orleans is getting ready for another wave of hurricanes--among other things, by …
FierceWiFi June 27, 2006
- Navini shows pre-mobile WiMAX in 2.3 GHz
- New WiFi security flaw found
- Muni-WiFi as supplements to cable, DSL
- 802.11n faces serious technical issues yet
- WiMAX on the streets of London
- SPOTLIGHT: Grazing ain't just for cows
- ALSO NOTED: Mindspeed shows suite for VoIP processors; NZ payphones are hotspots; and much more...