Wireless News

Stop The Cap has informed us that “North Carolina’s incumbent cable and phone companies are once again trying to ram through an anti-municipal broadband bill, and their timing is designed to rush it through committee before a groundswell of consumer opposition… Related posts:

1. Indiana anti-municipal bill: hearing on February 16
2. N. Carolina shelves anti muni broadband bill
3. Hearing on Indiana telecom bill on 10 January

Sioux Falls, South Dakota has just deployed a microwave backhaul system to link together 20 public buildings. The project caught my eye because it challenges one of the assumptions most of us make – that fiber is always more reliable… Related posts:

1. Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio also goes wireless
2. Lack of fiber backhaul delays Sprint’s WiMAX launch
3. Buyer’s Guide: Applications: Hansen Information Technologies

Continuing the discussion of the budget muni wireless network requires analyzing the front line component, the Access Point (AP). There are many variations of APs. They all have features and capabilities that provide enhancements in certain environments. Some of the… Related posts:

1. Is multi-radio Wi-Fi mesh worthwhile?
2. Compensating for limited signal coverage with external antennas
3. Tales from the towers: a wireless ISP’s experience building large Wi-Fi networks

David Pringle, moderator of the discussion forums on the GSMA’s Mobile Innovation Exchange, argues that Wi-Fi, not WiMAX, is the real competitor to LTE because the economics of Wi-Fi, not to mention its speed compared to existing cellular technologies, make it… Related posts:

1. Skype offers free calls to landlines in France
2. Voice over Wi-Fi: cheap, reliable calling unloved by mobile operators
3. Wi-Fi demand still surging

pa href="http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/04/prweb3851494.htm"strongPuts its money where its mouth is:/strong/a Discount Electronics plans 50 free Wi-Fi hotspots in Austin, with five live now, because it hasn't happened yet on its own. The firm's head, Rick Culleton, said in a statement, "If the city would let us, we'd put free WiFi in the airport and pick up the tab in full." /p pThe hotspots, under the a href="http://www.freeaustinwifi.com/"strongFreeAustinWiFi.com/strong/a banner, will be in locally owned operations, such as restaurants and bars, and be branded with the company's information. /p pIt's not like there's no free Wi-Fi in Austin, of course, and folks with long memories will recall the community wireless effort a href="http://www.austinwirelesscity.org/hotspot-list.php"strongAustin Wireless City Project/strong/a, which checks in with about 50 locations active in its hotspot list./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/SPUKvddPX-HhJ_nL8s9lsLzx8xE/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/SPUKvddPX-HhJ_nL8s9lsLzx8xE/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/SPUKvddPX-HhJ_nL8s9lsLzx8xE/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/SPUKvddPX-HhJ_nL8s9lsLzx8xE/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/goyT5DkuYvM" height="1" width="1"/

pa href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/technology/personaltech/08pogue.html?8ciremc=cirb1"strongNew York Times's David Pogue finds Cisco Valet doesn't quite meet an admirable target:/strong/a Following up on my post a few days ago in which I explained how Cisco managed to get a fair amount of attention for releasing yet another "simple to set up, simple to use" home router, the latest in a long, long series of such efforts by the entire industry, David Pogue weighs in on whether it meets the bill (I haven't tested one). His verdict is that the Valet makes a lot of good efforts in the direction of being as simple as the Flip--team behind Flip is responsible for the Valet's approach--but still puts bars in the way of a friction-free and comprehensible installation./p pHe also notes that the $100 unit has 2.4 GHz built in, which seems inadequate for an 802.11n router. It's a tricky tradeoff. Simultaneous dual-band devices can be made inexpensively, but perhaps not as cheaply as that yet./p pPogue notes, by the way, that Valet creates cutesy names for your network, like MonkeyTree, TinyFish, PeachLion, or HappyDog. This is a clever move. The master key material used in WPA/WPA2 is derived from a combination of the passphrase a user chooses or that's created for him or and her and the network's SSID or network name. There are precomputed databases of common SSIDs, like default and linksys, and pushing a unique combination of words for SSID does both make your network easier to identify and improve security. (Apple has long appended the last six hexadecimal digits of the base station's BSSID--a MAC address-like identifier--to create a unique network name partly for security reasons.br / /p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/KNjOhfV19PQMjhnoG7V_pibfe0g/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/KNjOhfV19PQMjhnoG7V_pibfe0g/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/KNjOhfV19PQMjhnoG7V_pibfe0g/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/KNjOhfV19PQMjhnoG7V_pibfe0g/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/0HyvW12yW9g" height="1" width="1"/

pHoo-ray, it's time for the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks! The call for proposals is now officially open -- this is our first time hosting the Summit outside the U.S., so we're expecting a whole bunch of new folks from overseas. Here's more:/p ul CALL FOR PROPOSALS -- Accepted April 1 - June 1, 2010/p pInternational Summit for Community Wireless Networksbr / August 12-15, 2010br / Vienna, Austria/p pPropose panels online at a href=http://www.wirelesssummit.org target=blankwww.wirelesssummit.org/a/p pSince the first National Summit for Community Wireless Networks in 2004, tens of thousands of community and municipal broadband initiatives have been deployed around the globe. The 2010 International Summit for Community Wireless Networks offers panelists to help shape the future direction of this thriving global movement. Over the course of three days, panels and workshops provide a significant opportunity for thinkers, developers, and stakeholders to swap notes and produce substantial recommendations supporting the continuing development of community wireless networks. By gathering leaders from across this field to exchange of strategies, stories, and best practices, the Summit is a key place to help shape the future of this global networking movement./p pInterested presenters should propose innovative panels and workshops focusing on the three themes for the Summit: technology, policy, and implementation. The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks distinguishes itself from typical technical and academic conferences by engaging all participants in an ongoing dialog that encourages a strategic approach to community wireless network development and telecommunications policy reform. Panelists do more than present their work and opinions -- they facilitate a process that records lessons learned and help produce a comprehensive to-do list of action items for the coming months and years./p pWe invite your panel proposals and participation in this year's International Summit for Community Wireless Networks to discuss and exchange ideas on how to make universal broadband access a reality. Demonstrations of software innovation, success stories of network deployment, presentations of ongoing research and discussion of municipal and governmental collaboration, on both the national and transnational levels, are welcome. Panelists are encouraged to convene panels that look at specific issues from multiple angles and perspectives. Panel ideas will be accepted on a rolling basis and must be received no later than June 1, 2010. Please send panel proposals of 250 words or less to: summit at chambana.net. Travel stipends are available for speakers with financial need./p pPast panels can be reviewed at http://wirelesssummit.org. /ul

The iPad is now the second most popular non-laptop device connecting to Boingo’s Wi-Fi networks, displacing Android devices and more than doubling the daily number of visits for the previous second place device, despite its recent launch (April 3, 2010). “It’s… Related posts:

1. Apple launches the iPad in WiFi and 3G versions
2. Boingo awarded patent for hotspot access
3. Boingo Wireless now in six major UK airports

pa href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/technology/07cell.html"strongMatt Richtel at the New York Times nails the ire of ATT customers about the 3G MicroCell:/strong/a From a technology standpoint, ATT 3G MicroCell, a small cellular base station that plugs into home or office broadband, seems to be a winner. From the marketing side, not so much. Richtel captures the tone of irritation among ATT customers who have poor cellular service who have heard that for a mere $150 of their own money, they can improve ATT's network. /p pI suspect we'll see far better deals from ATT that make the femtocell palatable, though, but the firm might be making an error in billing it as something you can do for yourself, when it's clearly for the company's benefit in keeping you as a customer. ATT should bleed a little more for you to make it work./p pAs I wrote several days ago, the femtocell is $150, but there's $100 rebate if you purchase a monthly $20 unlimited calling plan (same price for a single account or a family plan). The problem is that the $20/mo rate is pretty poor compared to ATT's only slightly higher unlimited everywhere plan, and with Internet telephony services. /p pGiven that most home callers are already covered under evening and weekends plans that are unmetered, ATT should have gone lower, to $10/mo, to make this seem like a better deal. It would be used heavily by home businesses, but the company should prefer customer loyalty and less margin than having that customer switch to T-Mobile (unlimited home calling at $10/mo, faster 3G already deployed) or Verizon (more 3G coverage and more robust indoor phone service)./p pWhat I've read in the days since the MicroCell was finally announced is that ATT will likely try to bundle femtocells into home routers, eating some or all of the cost there in favor of customer retention and satisfaction./p pI disagree with one part of Richtel's logic, though, where he notes, "Even though it expects the towers to improve signal quality and take pressure off its network, they could displace landline telephones because wireless consumers will not need a second phone number." That's only true outside of ATT's home markets. In those markets, if it can compete with cable, then ATT spends less money servicing regulated voice lines, and makes more money from quadruple-play broadband plus wireless. Outside its competitive wireline territory, ATT gets to eat Verizon and other firms' landline revenue if the wireless experience is better./p pWhere ATT has the greatest risk is in markets in which cable operators provide a better triple-play offer, and customers have no ATT wire coming into the house, but use ATT wireless alongside cable service. This gives ATT the least profit from that customer in its market, and the MicroCell is an incentive to not have traditional landline service./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/wzMExBetfCX6DrgYwxTJRLUUlAI/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/wzMExBetfCX6DrgYwxTJRLUUlAI/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/wzMExBetfCX6DrgYwxTJRLUUlAI/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/wzMExBetfCX6DrgYwxTJRLUUlAI/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/Ne9VMEEejxQ" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://wifinetnews.com/images/plane.jpg" align="right" border="0" hspace="5" /a href="http://gogo.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43item=47"strongAircell offers $35/mo rate for unlimited use of its Gogo Inflight Internet on whatever airline you find yourself on:/strong/a I can't see how this helps the airlines, given that it reduces loyalty to a specific airline instead of the overall availability of Internet service, but I imagine it will trigger a flood of frequent-flier signups. /p pThe service is contract-free, but automatically renews each month unless canceled. The pass can be purchased onboard most Gogo-equipped airlines (those with a fair number of planes in the air) or in advance. (The a href="http://www.gogoinflight.com/gogo/cms/price.do"strongpricing page/strong/a says that it only works on four airlines, but the press release says that it works on all Gogo-equipped airlines.)/p pGogo's other 30-day pricing seems a little strange now. $40 buys you a 30-day pass across all airlines, but without an automatic renewal; $30 gets you access on a single airline for 30 days.br / /p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FvNxuHOptACCPZMrWyMTGGjImJg/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FvNxuHOptACCPZMrWyMTGGjImJg/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FvNxuHOptACCPZMrWyMTGGjImJg/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/FvNxuHOptACCPZMrWyMTGGjImJg/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/SKBdsw_UkN8" height="1" width="1"/

The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced today that it received 867 applications requesting $11 billion in funding for proposed broadband projects in Round 2. Unfortunately, the agency has only $2.6 billion to allocate for the second… Related posts:

1. NTIA, RUS receive over 2000 applications for broadband stimulus funds
2. BIP, BTOP broadband infrastructure grant deadlines extended
3. Illinois counties get $11.9 million broadband grant for fiber network

A federal appellate court in the DC Circuit has ruled that the FCC does not have the authority under the Communications Act of 1934 to stop Comcast from blocking the use of peer-to-peer applications by customers on its network. To… Related posts:

1. Comcast blocking Internet traffic
2. Video distributor takes on ISPs over peer-to-peer throttling
3. FCC to blame for ISPs traffic shaping, app blocking

pa href="http://www.boingo.com/pr/articles/?a=2010-04-06-boingo-introduces-new-unlimited-wifi-plan-in-the-ukid=233"strongBoingo introduces UK plan with unlimited in-empire use:/strong/a Boingo clearly has a pretty good grasp of costs in North America, where you can get unlimited use for $10 per month, but has always had to keep a firmer grip on international roaming. Its Boingo Global plan costs $59/mo with 2,000 included minutes, a href="http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2008/10/boingo_tweaks_rates_raises_global_price.html"stronga revision back in late 2008/strong/a from a previous $39/mo and 3,000 minute offer. But it apparently has enough interest from UK customers to have an entirely new offering there./p pThe Boingo UK plan is pound;15/mo for unmetered access to over 5,000 UK hotspots, and pound;0.09 or pound;0.13 per minute for access across the rest of Boingo's aggregated hotspot network worldwide./p pBoingo now operates service at six major UK airports, with an additional deal at London Gatwick announced today. This gives them the local leverage for roaming with partners to make the finances work, I'm sure. Boingo operates dozens of airport Wi-Fi networks across North America./p pa href="http://www.thecloud.net/for-you/subscriptions"strongThe Cloud/strong/a has a competing, less-expensive offer: pound;10/mo for multiple devices with one account, or pound;7/mo for a single device. But The Cloud has about 3,500 locations, all of which are aggregated into Boingo's network./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/iXqMoPrt7PXf9f_FFStRxtbo9t0/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/iXqMoPrt7PXf9f_FFStRxtbo9t0/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/iXqMoPrt7PXf9f_FFStRxtbo9t0/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/iXqMoPrt7PXf9f_FFStRxtbo9t0/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/S_bb7Y8v0xE" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://wifinetnews.com/images/plane.jpg" align="right" border="0" hspace="5" /a href="http://www.longbets.org/267"strongDelta has 437 of 540 planned planes equipped with Wi-Fi:/strong/a The company noted on its blog that it's getting close to done, but also revealed that Aircell was clearly seeing enough usage to start adding more transmission gear to towers, thus reducing the number of planes in each covered cell. /p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NrWkWtE-Lnl0MR3RgGtySYlc-R8/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NrWkWtE-Lnl0MR3RgGtySYlc-R8/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NrWkWtE-Lnl0MR3RgGtySYlc-R8/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/NrWkWtE-Lnl0MR3RgGtySYlc-R8/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/ottk3EboSjM" height="1" width="1"/

pa href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/ptech/04/06/ipad.wifi.problems/"strongI wouldn't have expected this:/strong/a Piles of reports have appeared from users who can't get reliable connections from an Apple iPad to their Wi-Fi networks. The main problem appears to be that in a place where other devices see a strong Wi-Fi network signal, the iPad apparently only receives a weak one. This isn't just an artifact of the interface: those who run speed tests find the speed highly variable, especially compared to other devices (including iPhones) on the same network in the vicinity. Some users are also getting network disconnections and reconnections./p pIt's very odd for a new device with Wi-Fi from any firm to have these problems. The Wi-Fi Alliance's certification program has seemingly kept at bay major issues with new devices, by ensuring that interoperability and standards testing occurs before a product goes to market. (Apple is marketing the iPad with a Wi-Fi label, but the Wi-Fi Alliance's products database a href="http://www.wi-fi.org/search_products.php?search=1advanced=1lang=enfilter_company_id=5filter_category_id=filter_subcategory=filter_cid=date_from=date_to=x=42y=13selected_certifications[]=41"strongdoesn't yet show a certification on file/strong/a.)/p pApple a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3304"stronghas posted a support note/strong/a about an issue with an iPad not rejoining a network that it's already connected to which seems to involve only non-Apple simultaneous dual-band routers in which the same network name is used for both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands with different security methods (WPA on one and WPA2 on the other, for instance)./p pI expect given the volume of complaints that we'll see a 3.2.1 release of the iPad firmware post haste./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/qDkRimmYrvUVYwE1ETTv5xX8vmo/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/qDkRimmYrvUVYwE1ETTv5xX8vmo/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/qDkRimmYrvUVYwE1ETTv5xX8vmo/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/qDkRimmYrvUVYwE1ETTv5xX8vmo/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/EKaMAhqMgus" height="1" width="1"/

Several people have asked me how to build lower cost municipal Wi-Fi systems that cover anything from a very small area to hundreds of miles. To be honest, we haven’t yet deployed a muni Wi-Fi network that covers hundreds of… Related posts:

1. Is multi-radio Wi-Fi mesh worthwhile?
2. Why structured mesh is different
3. Mumbai gets citywide wireless mesh network

pstrongSo you might have heard about this thing Apple released on Saturday:/strong I've had one for a day, and while it's marvelous--certainly the best computing device ever produced of its size or nature--there's nothing under the hood to do with networking that's worth reporting on. The iPad handles 802.11a/b/g/n with 2.4 and 5 GHz support for the appropriate standards./p pThe flavor that adds 3G and a GPS receiver is due "in late April," according to Apple. With the no-contract deal Apple snagged for 3G use with ATT, I'm curious to see what non-US carriers agree to as 3G iPads are launched in other countries./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QTs6pOYZDPNSoimg4huy-u6aIXI/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QTs6pOYZDPNSoimg4huy-u6aIXI/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QTs6pOYZDPNSoimg4huy-u6aIXI/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/QTs6pOYZDPNSoimg4huy-u6aIXI/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/fmc8FzBmQQA" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://wifinetnews.com/images/train.jpg" align="right" border="0" hspace="5" /a href="http://nmrailrunner.com/news_Wifi_begins.asp"strongOnboard Wi-Fi for a new 95-mile rail system in New Mexico relies on WiMax for backhaul:/strong/a The folks at Azulstar, working with INX, built out the service, which will be free to passengers, and available along the route and at 15 train stations. Having driven some of that route (Albuquerque to Santa Fe), I reckon that the flatness of the terrain coupled with some mesas and higher points made the install feasible with just 22 base stations. /p pAzulstar, which I a href="http://wifinetnews.com/archives/2008/05/can_azulstar_make_wimax_work_without_buying_spectrum.html"strongwrote about two years ago/strong/a for its plan to use a special shared, cheap licensed band to run WiMax services, says it gets 6 Mbps downstream and 4 Mbps upstream. /p pThe company's head, Tyler van Houwelingen, told me via email that the system is redundant and mostly wireless. 5 GHz and 18 GHz are used for backhaul combined with some wired connections along the route, and WiMax at 3.65 GHz (that special band) is used with a 900 MHz fallback. Base stations are powered by solar and electrical with a 24-hour battery backup. Given winter and summer conditions in New Mexico, redundancy won't be extraneous./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/oXU8t88sJUAo3D7rvHwPpwkBSgU/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/oXU8t88sJUAo3D7rvHwPpwkBSgU/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/oXU8t88sJUAo3D7rvHwPpwkBSgU/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/oXU8t88sJUAo3D7rvHwPpwkBSgU/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/FboMidR4xdE" height="1" width="1"/

pa href="http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/01/verizon-mobile-hotspot-on-webos-devices-now-free/"strongVerizon will let you use the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Wi-Fi sharing service for free:/strong/a Verizon a href="http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/01/pr2010-01-21.html"strongwas charging $40 per month/strong/a to use the hotspot software you could download for the two Palm Plus models; it's now zero. Which means you get the functionality of a MiFi without the $60/mo cost of that device for a 5 GB plan. No mention was made of the total data allowed and the 5 cent/MB overage fee for the Palm and MiFi plans./p pPalm's fortunes are seeming fairy dismal, with missteps on product introductions and rolling out an application store and the like, even though reviews of its WebOS are generally positive. Verizon now charges just $50 for a Pre Plus and $30 for a Pixi Plus, and some other bargains thrown in, Engadget reports./p pExisting Plus subscribers using the hotspot feature will no longer be charged for it. Although you pay a data fee for the Palm, it's about the industry standard at $30 per month./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/uCS_EqyhfCtLuXaEFOQm94sUCsk/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/uCS_EqyhfCtLuXaEFOQm94sUCsk/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/uCS_EqyhfCtLuXaEFOQm94sUCsk/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/uCS_EqyhfCtLuXaEFOQm94sUCsk/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/_aCkLzlK0wY" height="1" width="1"/

pa href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-03-31-cisco31_ST_N.htm?csp=34"strongI don't blame Cisco for pulling this stunt, but the company got mainstream media to buy in:/strong/a Typical is this USA Today story, which follows the press release that the Cisco Valet is the company's "first consumer router," despite having purchased Linksys years ago and sold tens of millions of consumer routers during that time. The Valet has the same footprint, and likely similar innards with a new skin on top of it as most of the modern Linksys models./p pLate in the story, the USA Today reporter notes the Linksys subsidiary, but has fallen for the marketing line that the USB dongle that lets you supposedly easily set up every device is somehow unique to Cisco, new, and exciting. The real news, I suppose, is that the Pure Digital team that made the Flip video recorder, acquired by Cisco, was thrown onto the home networking product line. But that's hardly a revolution in hardware, is it?/p pThe notion of using USB drives (not one that comes with the device, necessarily) goes back several years to Microsoft's short-lived Wi-Fi product line, and some other companies--including Linksys!--let you write settings to a USB drive to move around to computers. (Amazingly, this time support comes in the first version out of the box for a href="http://www6.nohold.net/Cisco2/ukp.aspx?pid=80vw=1articleid=21465"strongboth Mac OS X and Windows/strong/a!)/p pThe notion of making Wi-Fi easy to set up dates back to, oh, I don't know, 1999? And it is far easier. Six years ago, I wrote "a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/115052/beating_the_wireless_blues.html"strongBeating the Wireless Blues/strong/a" for PC World, which explained how to fix Wireless Zero Config problems in Windows XP and other troubles of the time./p pAt that time, about 35 percent of Wi-Fi routers bought at retail were returned to stores. Cisco says its number today is about 20 percent. (bUpdate:/b Cisco says that's an industry average, not its experience.) That's closer to the return rate for all personal computer peripherals, but it also explains why Cisco is trying to change the narrative without necessarily offering anything new or different, just a further iteration of industry-wide efforts underway since Wi-Fi's inception./p pCopyright copy;2010 Glenn Fleishman. All rights reserved. Please a href="mailto:news@wifinetnews.com"notify us/a if you find this content anywhere but at a href="http://wifinetnews.com/"wifinetnews.com/a or a href="http://wimaxnetnews.com/"wimaxnetnews.com/a. Reproduction of full articles from RSS feeds is prohibited without permission./p pa href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/H0yD7yDZ4XbpyVTh_rWFeYizAfk/0/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/H0yD7yDZ4XbpyVTh_rWFeYizAfk/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/abr/ a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/H0yD7yDZ4XbpyVTh_rWFeYizAfk/1/da"img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/H0yD7yDZ4XbpyVTh_rWFeYizAfk/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wifinetnews/~4/gp4yXmNzhXs" height="1" width="1"/