Wireless Blog

The Creative Zen X-Fi is an incredible value given its low price and laundry list of features, which include photo, video, Audible, and subscription music support; an FM radio and voice recorder; an SD card ...

Boingo Wireless CEO David Hagan tells Unstrung that WiFi devices now represent 15 percent of their overall WiFi usage. In years past, they represented just 1 percent.

Laptops in airports, hotels, and other public places got the ball rolling, but momentum now seems to be with mobile devices. Portable gadgets like Apple’s iPhone and WiFi-enabled game consoles now allow WiFi access, anywhere.

This is good news for the Boingo. They have updated the Boingo client software and have developed software for smaller devices, predicting that cellular operators would be more open to 802.11 as they moved to flat-rate pricing, says Dan Jones of Unstrung.

Boingo offers WiFi access for $7.95/month for Smart Phones & PDAs. Sony Ericsson and Nokia are collaborating with Boingo to integrate their Wi-Fi roaming solution into dual-mode smartphones and their client software supports Windows Mobile smartphones and PDAs. For laptop users, Boingo Unlimited allows you to connect any time, for as long as you want, at thousands of North American hotspots for $21.95 per month.

Boingo also announced that its hotspot service is now available at the two major Washington, D.C.-area airports — Dulles International Airport and Ronald Reagan Airport. Boingo says their service, which costs now available in more than 100,000 locations from 150-plus hotspot operators in a worldwide network spanning 90 countries. Boingo is also available at more than 17,000 hotels, such as Hilton and Marriott Hotels, and retail destinations such as McDonald’s and Barnes & Noble.

The Minneapolis Wi-Fi network has reached a new stage: the beginning of normal operations, says the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It now has more than 10,000 customers, and is operating at the financial break-even point, said network operator US Internet.

US Internet funded, build, and managed a wireless network covering all 59 square miles of Minneapolis, providing residents, businesses, and visitors with wireless broadband access anywhere in the City. The city of Minneapolis committed $1.25 million dollars in annual usage of wireless services as an anchor tenant of the network and is using the system for a variety of public safety projects.

Some 2,000 wireless devices are installed throughout the City on light poles, traffic signals, and buildings to complete the network. USI Wireless promised to provide $500,000 to create a “digital inclusion fund” that will be used to promote affordable Internet access, low cost hardware, local content and training and direct a minimum of five percent of the network’s net profits to a digital inclusion fund.

Service is not free although free limited-time service is available in some public locations like parks and plazas. USI Wireless offers multiple service packages that start around $19/month.

The experience of Minneapolis is in stark contrast to nearly every other Wi-Fi project in big cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

Portland’s 134 square mile MetroFi network was shut down earlier this year with some 600 WiFi nodes installed. The city expects that the nodes will be removed in the next month or so.

Dailywireless got a call this week from one potential buyer of MetroFi who claimed they were willing to buy the Portland system — even the entire company — but their phone calls and emails were never returned by MetroFi.

Go figure.

DailyWireless has more than 650 related Municipal Wireless stories including; Earthlink to Philly: We’re Outta Here, Philadelphia WiFi Network To Shut Down June 12, MuniFi Roundup, Muni-Fi’s Got Trouble, Who the MuniFi MAN?, Municipal WiFi: What Would You Do?, Wireless Silicon Valley: Would You Believe a Dozen Hotspots in San Carlos?, Free Grass Roots Wi-Fi: It Works in Portland, Starbucks Adds AT&T Wi-Fi, Earthlink Gets Out, MetroFi Vs Portland, Meraki Proposes Free SF Wi-Fi Network, OpenAirBoston Regroups; Becomes Open, Sacramento WiFi on Slow Track, Sacramento Approves WiFi, SoCal Wireless: Toast?, MuniFi: What Now?, MuniFi: Not Dead Yet, Earthlink Restructures, MuniFi Holds Breath, San Francisco WiFi Dead?, Earthlink Tweeks WiFi Business, New York’s 750 sq mile Cloud, San Francisco WiFi Dead?, Wireless Houston: Size Queen?, State-wide Wireless Broadband Access, Ten Cities Under Colorado Cloud, FiberNet for Calif Schools, Washington’s 1500mi Cloud, Sprint WiMAXing NYC, Connecting the Nation, WiFi Vs WiMAX in Windy City, New York’s 750 sq mile Cloud, Will “N” Rescue MuniFi?, Aeris + PacifiCorp: CDMA Meter Reading, M2Z: Free Internet Now!, Sprint’s WiMAX Cities, San Francisco: Now it’s the Antennas!, WiFi War in San Francisco, Houston + Earthlink to Build Huge MuniFi Network, El Paso Unwired + Most of California, Green Light for Philly WiFi Expansion, City Clouds Turn On, Minneapolis Goes Local, Digital City Winners, Anaheim Turns On, New Orleans Gets Earthlink Cloud, Portland Chooses MetroFi for 134 Mile Cloud, Milwaukee’s $20M Cloud, Dvorak: Muni WiFi Will Die, The World Largest WiFi Cloud, Rain on SF Cloud, Google WiFi SitRep, San Mateo: 1st Silicon Valley Cloud, Sacramento Approves WiFi, Cloud for Silicon Valley, Wireless Silicon Valley Proposals, Park City: Solar WiFi, Solar Powered Solstice, GoogleFi: Ads or Not?, Google WiFi Interview, Portland Chooses MetroFi for 134 Mile Cloud, SF WiFi: Bad Deal for Poor?, SF Cloud: It’s Google/Earthlink, Minneapolis Bridge Collapse & Emergency Communications and Philly Chooses Earthlink.

Details of Motorola's Atila smartphone, the non-keyboard version of the previously leaked Windows Mobile 6.1 Alexander , have leaked, and for once Motorola look to be onto a winner.

The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials, the world’s largest organization dedicated to public safety communications, held their annual APCO Conference last week in Kansas City, Kansas (Exhibitor List and Program schedule).

The mission of their statewide chapters involves 911 emergency communications services and a variety of spectrum issues such as interoperability using Project 25 radios, Rebanding the Nextel 800MHz band and frequency coordination among other things.

Urgent Communications Magazine covers this beat and has a variety of articles.

• A panel discussing the future of the 911 system and emergency communications spoke of wondrous new capabilities, some of which first responders “haven’t even dreamed of yet.” The U.S. Department of Transportation’s NG 911 Project is developing a migration plan for an IP-based, digital 911 network. “There are decisions that police, fire and EMS will have to make,” said Laurie Flaherty, co-manager of the project. “Now that we’ve enabled this IP system, what do you want? What kind of data is going to make a difference in terms of helping you do your jobs better? More is not necessarily better.” Some fear new features, such as the ability to text 911 will unleash a torrent of calls that could overwhelm PSAPs, or Public Safety Answering Points.
  
• Already more than one month beyond the scheduled completion date for 800 MHz rebanding, public-safety users are expected to substantially complete the transition during the next year, FCC representatives said at the APCO conference. “Sprint [Nextel, the wireless carrier paying for rebanding] wants to get this finished. I think a lot of the burden will fall on public safety to get this done,” Derek Poarch, chief of the FCC’s public safety and homeland security bureau (PSHSB), said on Monday.
• Push-to-talk interoperability between most cell phones, PDAs and LMR radios is now available to public-safety agencies with access to broadband networks, as shown during a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) demonstration. In its the Radio Over Wireless Broadband (ROW-B) project, DHS leverages the cellular push-to-talk capabilities of Clarity Communications—a subsidiary of ISCO International—and the recently created bridging systems interface (BSI) protocol to enable widespread push-to-talk capability via broadband wireless networks.
• Challenges surrounding the proposed 700 MHz public-private partnership model were discussed, but leaders within APCO remain supportive of the notion, reports Urgentcomm. To create a greater financial incentive for a commercial operator to bid on the 10 MHz D Block—to be coupled with public safety’s 10 MHz swath of broadband spectrum to provide the foundation of the network—APCO suggests that public-safety users have pre-emptive rights on no more than 50% of the network’s capacity instead of the 100% proposed. “This may seem like a concession,” Sean O’Hara of Syracuse Research said during the panel discussion. “But, if this [network] is not built, we’re not going to get to use more than that 10 MHz anyway.”

Lenovo has launched its 17-inch ThinkPad W700, which it described as "the PC industry's highest-performance mobile workstation." The laptop has a built-in graphics tablet and will support the upcoming Intel mobile quad-core processor.

The W700 offers what Lenovo called the industry's first built-in digitizer and color calibrator in a mobile workstation, as well as NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics, dual hard drives in a RAID configuration, up to 8GB of memory, a variety of wireless connectivity choices, and an optional Blu-ray DVD player. There are also five USB ports, a 7-in-1 multicard reader, and a fingerprint reader.

Targeting Professionals

Up to 2GB of its memory can be configured to support Intel Turbo Memory, and the dual hard drives can be configured so that one is a solid-state drive. Some W700 models will offer Intel vPro technology for IT management. Connectivity options include WLAN 802.11n, WWAN 2, or WiMax, as well as Bluetooth and ultra-wideband.

The W700 is targeted at professionals in the areas of digital content, computer-assisted design and manufacturing, photography, and scientific fields such as oil and gas exploration.

Peter Hortensius, senior vice president of the notebook business unit, said "no other PC manufacturer delivers the sheer quality, power and performance, and cutting-edge innovation packed into this mobile workstation." With the ThinkPad W700, he added, Lenovo "has engineered a new breed of mobile workstations."

According to industry reports, mobile workstations have become nearly a quarter of the worldwide workstation market in the last five years, and are expected to grow another five percent next year.

'An Innovation Statement'

The color calibrator on the W700 automatically adjusts, up to four times monthly, the color of the optional WUXGA display. The calibrator is built in as part of a palm rest, as is the digitizer, which helps digital-content users configure and image by mapping to the...

Early adopters waited in lines overnight to buy Apple's first-generation iPhone when it became available. And now they're looking for ways to swap it for Apple's latest iPhone 3G with GPS capability.

David Chen, founder of NextWorth Solutions in Massachusetts, is ready to buy the old iPhones for as much as the new iPhone 3G costs while also helping the environment. "There is a huge demand for the first-generation iPhones because the battery for the older iPhones is stronger," Chen told us.

And for those who aren't comfortable selling their iPhones online, NextWorth has partnered with retailers, including Circuit City, to take old iPhones in exchange for store credit. Other retailers include Tweeter, J&R Music, and Computer World.

"We are in 51 Circuit City stores and are trying to roll it out nationally," Chen said. "We are giving anywhere from $200 to $300 in instant credit."

Keeping Green

There is more to his business model than just collecting used iPhones, according to Chen.

"The base line of our concept is how do we encourage reuse and keep things out of the landfill?" he said. "We hold on to it and it sits in our desk drawer and it depreciates and in the end it ends up in the landfill."

By buying old iPhones, Chen's company is able to recycle and reuse the parts in other devices and dispose of broken parts using environmentally safe avenues.

Other Options

A better option for owners of old iPhones who want to upgrade is to give it or sell it to a family member or friend, according to Aaron Vronko, service manager at Rapid Repair. Recipients will still need to pay iPhone data fees, which in the U.S. are $30 for the 3G and $20 for the first-generation iPhone.

Rapid Repair, based in Michigan and formerly known as ipodmods.com, also...

Want an “open” Android phone? Want to download thousands of applications? TMO News has a rumor you’ll love:

TmoNews is putting in our vote of confidence on a presale of the Android phone on September 16th, 2008.

This information, coming from a trusted source, prices the Android phone, also known as the G1 (Codename or real name, we’re not sure) at $399.

T-mobile customers can pick up the phone for $150. This is where it gets interesting, we’re not seeing any prices for new activations during the presale, so this could mean that only current T-mobile customers can pick up the G1 during the presale. Other customers interested in the G1 may have to wait until beginning/mid October before a national public launch.

Many users have seen the recent video circulating the next claiming to be the HTC Dream (AKA G1). The G1 will be released in black, white, and brown. Being 3G enabled, the HTC manufactured G1 will unfortunately require its own data plan from T-mobile, which we expect to be more expensive then current data plans. Interestingly enough (maybe not so much knowing Google) users will be required to have a Google Gmail account for the phone to work.

So far expected specs include 3G, a long and wide touch screen, and a slide out Qwerty keypad, and no mention of UMA or Wi-Fi.

No mention of Wi-Fi? What kind of phone is that?

Moco News says, starting this fall, T-Mobile USA roll out an Apps Store, not unlike Apple’s. It will be available to download a variety of applications, for a variety of phones available from the carrier, not just one model (like the iPhone).

C/Net speculates that the first T-Mobile AWS (3G) phones will be the Samsung SGH-T639, Samsung SGH-T819, Nokia 6263, and Nokia 3555.

Related Dailywireless stories include; OpenMoko Arrives, Apps Store: Red Hot, T-Mobile Plans Ap Store, Android: No Unification, Las Vegas Gets T-Mobile AWS, New LiMo Handsets, License to Print Money, Location Apps: Here. Now. and Open Warfare at OsCon.

TMF Associates, a Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) consulting firm, today released its analysis of the proposed Skyterra/Inmarsat merger, and an updated profile of Iridium.

Tim Farrar, author of the research, commented, “Doubts have grown over the last year about whether the re-use of MSS spectrum in terrestrial networks, referred to as Ancillary Terrestrial Components or ATC, will ever happen.

The proposed merger of Skyterra and Inmarsat will go a long way towards making the deployment of ATC in North America more feasible. However, wireless operators may not have any reason to focus on potential ATC spectrum acquisitions until the level of demand for 4G data services (such as Clearwire’s WiMAX deployment) is better understood, which will take until late 2010.

While the core MSS business of operators like Iridium and Inmarsat remains strong, particular in maritime and aeronautical services, the level of demand for the integrated satellite-terrestrial services proposed by Skyterra is uncertain.

As Telephony Magazine explains, when the FCC issued its ATC rulings in 2003-2004, it opened new horizons for a number of players in the L and S Bands, including TerreStar Networks and MSV, and gave them the opportunity to turbo-charge their business plans.

In the S Band alone, 40 MHz of spectrum is available to licensees for combined terrestrial wireless and satellite service use. The ATC ruling allows these satellite spectrum holders to use their satellite phone spectrum on terrestrial radio towers. It provides the flexibility to offer services, similar to cellular, with better reach inside cars and buildings, using smaller phones.

TerreStar now plans to launch its TerreStar-1 satellite in the second quarter of next year. Earlier the company had planned on a Dec. 2008 to Feb. 2009 launch.

Both ICO and TerreStar have 20 MHz each in the MSS band (2.0/2.1 GHz). They’ll deliver spotbeam satphone services from geosynchronous space, supplemented with terrestrial repeaters.

Related satellite phone stories on DailyWireless include: TerreStar Roams with AT&T, Skyterra/MSV Get $500M, MSS: Battle Space, ICO Deploys 40 Foot Antenna, ICO Wants Its Mobile TV - via DVB-SH, Spot Beam Sats Multiply, Satphones: Merger Ahead?, Inmarsat + SkyTerra = Spectrum Sharing.

Field tests to determine whether the Federal Communications Commission should open up unused TV spectrum for wireless broadband services are getting mixed reviews as different methods for avoiding spectrum ...