WISP News

Updates: Philly network buildout continues, Portland’s Wi-Fi access points face cold winter

A tale of two cities: Philadelphia’s wireless network, acquired by a group of local investors, is being rolled out to parts of the city where there’s no access. More importantly, the investors are going after the municipal and business markets, two areas that EarthLink failed to focus on in its muni Wi-Fi strategy. Philly’s network [...]

Orange and SFR agree to share fiber access in buildings, Iliad-Free cries foul

Orange and SFR, the two major broadband operators in France agreed to share the fiber optic lines going into apartment and office buildings. In a letter of intent signed by the operators, they stated that the “co-owner associations” of a multi-tenant building or their representatives would be able to choose the operator to install the [...]

Progress in reform of EU telecoms regulations

Last week, in a series of votes, the European Parliament adopted an amended legislative proposal called the Telecom Package. Originally prepared by Viviane Reding, head of the European Commission for Information Society, the initial text consisted of a set of propositions designed to revise the existing Regulatory Framework for Telecommunications (originally enacted in 2002). The initial [...]

UK considers plan to speed up rollout of FTTH networks

As France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to launch a long awaited Digital Plan within a couple of weeks, the UK is now looking into playing a more active role in shaping broadband policies. “This does not translate into subsidies or structural changes in regulation, but rather a set of initiatives that could support and [...]

Unlocked Apple 3G iPhone available from Apple Hongkong store

You can buy the Apple 3G iPhone unlocked from the Apple store in Hongkong. Unfortunately if you try to order and get it delivered outside Hongkong, the Apple HK online store does not allow it. But I am sure there are retailers in Hongkong who would gladly ship it to you. The Apple HK online [...]

Free Wi-Fi in Pleasant Hill, California

Pleasant Hill’s muni Wi-Fi network has been up and running for three months now, offering free (with banner ads)  Wi-Fi service to almost 70 percent of the city. There will be a paid option (no ads) very soon. The city set up a muni Wi-Fi network in 2005 for the police department at a cost of [...]

Lincoln, UK issues RFP for Wi-Fi network

The city of Lincoln in the UK has issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking bidders for the deployment of a wireless network that will cover the city center. Lincoln is in the eastern part of England and is best known for the gothic Lincoln Cathedral, built between 1192 and 1280. Details of the Lincoln city [...]

T-Mobile G1 Android phone is out, but has serious flaws

T-Mobile rolled out its latest device, the G1 phone which uses Android (Google’s open-source OS for mobile devices). Now that the hype has finally died down, here’s my take on the phone: it’s rather ugly: cheap plastic keyboard, looks too much like all the other old devices with their cheap plastic keyboards (thinking of the Sidekick) no [...]

London mayor wants citywide Wi-Fi

Boris Johnson, mayor of London, criticized Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s plan to give children up to £700 in computer vouchers to get them online. Johnson calls it a “desperate bribe” by the Prime Minister. Instead, Johnson says that London should create a citywide Wi-Fi network: “What we need is a city where anywhere you go, [...]

Muni Wi-Fi in Iraq

A wide-area Wi-Fi network has been deployed at the Joint Base Balad in Iraq to serve over US military personnel stationed there. It is scheduled to be complete by November 2008. The network operator charges $60 per month for 256Kbps (down) and 128 Kbps (up), and uses satellite as backhaul. At present the network has [...]

European Commission launches public consultation on fiber networks

Viviane Reding, EU telecom commissioner, is launching a public consultation on Next Generation Access (NGA) networks. The public consultation will be open for comment until 14 November 2008. Its goal is to provide guidance to the national regulatory authorities on how to facilitate the rapid emergence of fiber to the home networks (FTTH) in Europe [...]

Business use of Wi-Fi hotspots grows by 46%, 3G use increases by 59%

iPass released the latest edition of its Mobile Broadband Index which shows that business use of Wi-Fi hotspots (in the iPass network) grew by 46% between the first half of 2007 and the first half of 2008. 3G data use in the US increased by 59% between Q2 2007 and Q2 2008. Please note that [...]

Comcast discloses, then hits the comments trail

Hitting the deadline with the precision that only a journalist could love, Comcast filed its paperwork with the FCC at about the latest hour imaginable Friday, disclosing both its previous/current “network management” techniques as well as its “protocol agnostic” techniques it would use going forward, all of this made necessary by the FCC’s punitive order [...]

Municipalities and open access critical to FTTH growth in France

At a meeting of the French Committee for Public Initiative Networks (Comité des Réseaux d’Initiative Publique or CRIP) in the restored Amphitheater of Le Jardin des Plantes in Paris, Paul Champsaur, President of ARCEP, the French regulator, said that municipal and regional governments will be at the forefront of deployments of very high-speed broadband infrastructure [...]

Boingo adds Swisscom hotspots to their roaming network

One of the few pieces of good news this week (as I’m trying to avoid thinking about the meltdown in the financial markets): Boingo Wireless has added 1100 Swisscom hotspots in Switzerland to their network of roaming partners. Why is this such a big deal for me? Because Swisscom’s Wi-Fi hotspot service, not only in [...]

Numericable: a new competitor shakes up the French broadband market

Is Numericable poised to inject even more competition into the French broadband market? That’s certainly the question on people’s minds these days, after Pierre Danon, new CEO of Numericable, presented a new vision and strategy for the cable company in which Cinven and Carlyle have heavily invested. His goal is to turn Numericable into an [...]

Our broadband sucks but at least we have a lot of company

Another day, another study announcing to the world that broadband infrastructure in most countries is not future-ready (for watching YouTube, video chatting and file sharing). It’s not even present-ready, given that many people are using these applications right now. A study based on results of Speedtest.net (which I use to measure bandwidth when I’m traveling - [...]

Lawsuits of the week: Comcast appeals FCC ruling, telco sues town for installing fiber

You didn’t really think Comcast would roll over and obey the FCC’s ruling forbidding them from blocking P2P applications, did you? Comcast rallied its legal troops and filed an appeal, which landed in the D.C. Circuit (whose reputation is pro-industry, anti-regulation). The Media Access Project has filed a petition asking the federal court to get [...]

Cost of text messaging keeps rising: $1310 per megabyte

It seems the only person outraged enough to complain about the rising cost of text messaging and possible collusion (aka price fixing) among the carriers is Senator Herb Kohl, head of the US Senate antitrust subcommittee who sent a letter to four mobile phone operators (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) which reads in part: “Your four [...]

Meraki SF Wi-Fi network shows giant increase in iPhone use

According to Meraki, the mesh equipment provider, the iPhone now accounts for 20% of devices using the Meraki network in San Francisco, up from 6% a year ago. The company says that 150,000 devices have accessed the network, so that’s a lot of iPhones! My take: not only are there more iPhones out there, but many [...]