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T-Mobile leads in AWS auction
The second week of the AWS auction ended on Friday, with the original 168 bidders being whittled down to 137 and with money so far pledged for licenses reaching $11.37 billion. As of Friday, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA have outspent all of the other remaining bidders combined.
T-Mobile License LLC held the leading bid of more than $3.8 billion on 125 licenses. Verizon Wireless and Vodafone Group were second with $2.8 billion for four licenses. SpectrumCo, a …
Pre-802.11n sells briskly despite high price
This is a case of getting what you pay for, more or less. The 802.11n standard has not yet been approved but pre-802.11n gear (or draft-802.11n, as some call it) is already available, with mostly small offices and companies investing in it. They're buying it even though it costs almost twice as much as gear based on ratified standards and while facing the risk of having to upgrade or even replace the equipment when the standard is finally ratified.
Market research firm …
Blimp-based communication system to be tested
Old soldiers may fade away, but not old ideas, especially if they have merit. This is the view of Bob Jones, a former manager at NASA, who wants to wed technologies from the past and the present in what he calls the Stratellite.
Jones's vision calls for a fleet of unmanned Stratellites--helium-filled dirigibles--to replace ungainly telecom towers. The dirigibles would hover at 65,000 feet, covering large swaths of territory (a typical airship's radio equipment could cover an area …
The deeper WiFi revolution
If you've read John Dvorak's PC Magazine columns for long enough (and I have, for many years), you would know that adjectives like "timid" and "reticent" aren't usually the first ones that leap to mind when describing his writing style. Dvorak always lets you know where he stands on an issue. So it was good to see a recent column of his in which he elaborated on a theme that we discussed some time ago--the consequences, or "hidden consequences," as he calls them--of …
Connexion by Boeing, RIP
How the mighty have fallen. Last week Boeing announced it was shutting down its Connexion by Boeing broadband-in-the-air program and was exiting the high-speed broadband communications connectivity market. Boeing said it would work with its customers to facilitate an orderly phase out of the Connexion by Boeing service. Those who used the service liked it. Trouble is, there weren't enough of them.
Boeing said it would take a $320 million charge, writing down the assets and paying …
SPOTLIGHT: Back to school...with WiFi?
The school year is about to begin and more and more schools--from junior high classrooms to university lecture halls--are offering an in-class WiFi connection, allowing students to use laptops in class (more than 40 percent of classrooms at colleges and universities had wireless access in fall 2005, up from 35.5 percent in 2004). Is this always-on connection a good thing or a bad thing? On the one hand, students may use the access to finish homework and write term papers. On the other …
ALSO NOTED: WLAN and Bluetooth single chip solution; New i-mate may run Windows Mobile 5.0
> Marvell is showing what it claims to be the world's first WLAN equipped with Bluetooth single chip solution. Press release
> Unconfirmed reports say that a new i-mate model, the i-mate Jaq, does not appear to rely on HTC for its design. The phone purportedly runs the full-fledged Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition. …