Available today from T-Mobile USA Inc., the new T-Mobile Sidekick powered by Danger introduces innovative software, services and hardware customization that improve an already celebrated mobile experience.
I got a call this morning from a rep at Avanquest Software, alerting me to the fact that the company is offering free consumer downloads of its new wireless networking tool for laptop users, Connection Manager. (The software has a retail value of $29.95.)
Connection Manager is designed for anyone living the "mobile lifestyle" with a laptop in tow. Its function is to provide users with quick, secure Internet/network access regardless of the connectivity method being used.
"Connection Manager automatically identifies and stores necessary network and security parameters for virtually every type of publicly used connection standard, including standard Ethernet, WiFi, ADSL and WiMAX," the company said in a July 22 announcement.
The software stores preferred network and security settings for every type of connection method and application being used (e.g. e-mail client, printer, shared disk drive), enabling laptop users to "seamlessly transition from one network to the next without having to adjust settings or deal with annoying error messages." It achieves this feat by working with existing firewalls and security apps to "guarantee optimal protection levels for the chosen network environment."
Connection Manager Screenshot
Connection Manager is compatible with current WPA encryption protocols and 64/128-bit WEP.
While the software is marketed toward business users, it seems to me that anyone concerned about security (and everyone should be) would do well to check out Connection Manager.
Ryan Smith, director of product marketing at Avanquest Publishing USA, summed up that thought well: "Whether novice users or power users, everyone can appreciate Connection Manger's automatic handling of tedious Internet connection configurations, letting anyone just simply turn on their laptop and start surfing the Web."
I would only add the word "secure" to Smith's statement.
To see Connection Manager in action, you can check out two YouTube videos. The first is amusing, the second is more standard fare for a product promotion.
Tags: Avanquest Software, Connection Manager, firewall, Internet access, laptop, security
NETGEAR, Inc., a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking solutions, today announced the launch of the Wireless-N Upgrade Kit , a Plug-and-Play solution that makes it fast and easy for ...
Google’s Sergey Brin estimated that “iPhone users do 30 times as many mobile web searches as users of other devices,” reports Search Engine Watch. Google anticipates search volume will increase as the iPhone and other sophisticated devices encourage mobile search.
As Search Engine Watch explains, “Mobile phones offer less space for mobile advertising. That’s offset by the fact that queries are localized. Through GPS, it’s easy to identify a person’s location. Advertisers in close proximity can serve time and location-sensitive offers for fine-tuned targeting”.
On Sunday July 13, Apple announced that 10,000,000 apps had been downloaded via the App Store. A little over a week later - on July 21st, 25 million apps have been downloaded.
So why is this important, asks Ryan Spoon? Do the math.
Raven Zachary, research director of the 451 Group and founder of iPhoneDevCamp, explains it all in a word — money.
With Apple’s Apps Store, people are getting rich overnight.
He ran some numbers and projected some initial revenue estimates this week at Mobile Portland. His presentation will be posted here shortly. The dollars made by developers in the last two weeks will take your breath away.
Consumer electronics products no longer exist in a vacuum: increasingly they are linked to each other via a number of short-range radio technologies.
Celeno Communications, a startup designing a variant of Wi-Fi chips geared for video, has closed a $16 million funding round led by Cisco Systems, reports EE Times.
Celeno is currently sampling a 5 GHz chip set for carrying video over at rates up to 34 Mbits/second and distances up to 120 feet, according to the company. The new funding will help the company gear up sales and marketing for the current chip and design efforts on a second-generation.
Celeno competes with Amimon, another Israel-based chip startup with a similar goal. Amimon is shipping a 5 GHz chip that uses a novel encoding approach to deliver video throughout a home.
Celeno says its baseband uses beam-forming MIMO and “channel aware” approaches can deliver as much as 10 times the range and as much as twice the throughput of 802.11n chips, but has not described exactly how its approach works.
Three wireless systems for connecting HDTVs are competing for the home, says EE Times. This “battle of technologies” is being fought between three contending systems, 5 GHz, 60 GHz, and ultra wideband (UWB), according to ABI Research. Most established wireless vendors are waiting to see how the market evolves, says the research firm.
There is no consensus among consumer manufacturers on a single standard or unified wireless HD format. But wireless connections are expected to simplify A/V installations and allow more flexibility in positioning TVs.
Comcast, which serves a total of 24.2 million cable customers, 14.7 million digital cable customers, and 12.9 million high-speed internet customers, is the largest cable television company in the United States and the second largest Internet service provider.
Comcast is now the fourth largest phone company with 5.6 million customers, notes Broadband Reports. Cable carriers own nearly 85% of the residential VoIP market. Comcast says roughly two-thirds of their new broadband customers switched from DSL, and about one-fifth of their customers are now signing up for triple play bundles.
Comcast’s quarterly earnings report shows they added 555,000 Comcast Digital Voice (CDV) customers during the second quarter — with penetration around 12.5% of homes passed or 5.6 million customers. Phone revenue increased 50% from $425 million to $640 million in the second quarter of 2008.
Their broadband additions (278,000 broadband customers added in the quarter), better than the broadband line additions posted by both AT&T (46,000) and Verizon (54,000) this quarter.
Comcast is putting up $1.05 billion as part of the huge Mobile WiMAX deal with Sprint, Clearwire, Google and Intel, with Time Warner Cable fronting another $500 million. The $14.5 billion venture, which will be called Clearwire, includes Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Google and Bright House Networks.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. The new Clearwire will give Comcast a wireless alternative to AT&T and Verizon Wireless. The new company expects to cover 100 million U.S. citizens by the end of 2010 and reach 200 million potential users by 2015.
AT&T Wireless, with 73 million total subscribers, reported 1.3 million new subs this quarter while VZW, with 64 million total subscribers, recorded 1.5 million new subs this quarter. The industry is still waiting on results from third ranked Sprint. Sprint Nextel recently reported 52.8 million subscribers while T-Mobile USA has some 30.8 million customers.
The United States ranks third in the total number of cellular subscribers — at 260 million. India is number two at 286 million and China is number one with more than 600 million mobile subscribers.
Related Dailywireless stories include; Cable Goes Wireless, Comcast Talks and It’s Official: Sprint, Cable & Google Building WiMAX Network.
Sprint has announced the nationwide availability of its Airave femtocell. It boosts cellular service inside your home and works with up to three handsets using Sprint’s CDMA network (Nextel phones aren’t supported).
The Airave box is $99.99. To use it with a Sprint plan, the customer must add the “enhanced coverage charge,” which adds $4.99/month to the bill, and either a Single line unlimited calling plan at $10 per month or the multi-line option which is $20 per month, per account.
Sprint’s femtocell uses your own DSL or cable modem connection for backhaul.
Femtocells provide voice and data services inside the home like a WiFi access point, but they use cellular frequencies inside the home. Your own DSL or cable modem is used for backhaul.
Made by Samsung, the Airave box, does not need a Sprint signal at the user’s location. Of course, if a residence is outside the range of Sprint’s signal, their cell calls can’t automatically transfer when leaving the home.
AT&T is also looking at femtocells, and said it plans to launch its own trial later this year.
T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home, by contrast, uses a WiFi hotspot for indoor coverage. Cell phones with built-in WiFi provide automatic handoff for T-Mobile using the UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access) standard.
T-Mobile’s HotSpot@Home requires WiFi enabled phones. Sprint’s femtocell technology works with ordinary cell phones because the “hotspot” is a miniature cellular basestation.
Femtocells promises to reduce operating costs of cellular operators by 30-40%, says Frost and Sullivan. For most operators backhaul OPEX can be anywhere between 30 to 40% of operator costs. Femtocells allow operators to impose backhaul costs on the user.
But femtocells have cost, interference and handover issues says Frost and Sullivan. Femtocells cost $150-$300 and interference can be generated by using the same (licensed) channel pair as outdoor macrocells. Currently it is not possible for a macro cell to have thousands of femtocells as neighbours. Handover into the femtocell (from a macro cell) is also a concern.
Operators remain optimistic says Frost and Sullivan. Femtocells may improve cellular performance inside buildings. “Frost & Sullivan expects small scale deployments to occur during the second half of 2009 by a few Tier 1 mobile operators and based on the results of the 2009 launch, other mobile operators may jump in.
According to Unstrung , the upcoming LTE standard will need standardized femto equipment. Operators need a clear view of how femtocells will support their equipment, before they can even consider large-scale deployments.
The next plenary meeting of the Femto Forum in September will be crucial for vendors to reach a consensus on some of the details, says Unstung.
Related Dailywireless articles include; AT&T: Femtocells R Us, EdgePoint Femtocell, T-Mobile Expands Hotspot@Home, Ericsson: Wi-Fi is Dead, Dead, Dead, Femto Forum Expands, Sprint; Femocell at Home, Google Invests in Femocell Company, Hotspots for Cellphones and Cable/Sprint Pole Dance.
The solution, deployed by Indra, is built on the Ekahau Positioning Engine, a software-based location server that leverages existing enterprise Wi-Fi infrastructure for location tracking.
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