Category: Commentary

The recent WiMAX World conference in Boston highlighted many key themes of the emerging market, but none more clearly than the gap between the mobile ambitions of the largest vendors and carriers, and the fixed wireless markets into which the first equipment is launching – a gap that Motorola and others are seeking to bridge...

XO Communications, a telephone company controlled by financier Carl Icahn, will sell its Internet-access unit to Icahn for $700 million to focus on wireless. Via [seattletimes.nwsource.com]

A public official in Westchester County, some 30 miles north of New York, has proposed legislation that would require businesses that collect customer information to apply basic security like firewalls when also offering wireless access to consumers. Via [pcmag.com]

I have always been a fan of Wi-Fi wireless networking, but lately I'm beginning to wonder if we might not have too much of a good thing. While Wi-Fi is wonderful on laptops, the technology is starting to turn up in smaller, simpler devices where it often seems like more trouble than it's worth. Eastman...

While so-called "industry leaders" quibble over what will be the one true standard for 802.11n and UWB implementations, there are four different companies pushing the edge in new ways to implement wireless. Three of the four aren't really mainstream, but all of them hold their own seeds to blow beyond the de facto 802.11g/Bluetooth/WiMax plodding...

The technology is likely to be too expensive to become as popular as existing mobile phones, said Qualcomm's Andrew Viterbi. Via [informationweek.com]

Once considered a playground for hackers and malicious attacks, wireless networks are fast becoming more secure than their wired counterparts. Via [searchnetworking.techtarget.com]

Wireless ventures get $3 of every $5 invested in telecom, MoneyTree Survey reveals. Via [informationweek.com]

Sitting in the San Francisco airport last Sunday, Don DePalma checked his e-mail on his laptop. The sight was hardly unusual. Like many itinerant executives, DePalma frequently uses Wi-Fi "hot spots" in airline VIP lounges, coffee shops and other locales around the country. Via [usatoday.com]

The latest wireless technologies are all touted as having faster data transfer speeds and greater ranges. Just don't expect them to work with future devices. Via [vnunet.com]

A growing number of cities in the US are treating high-speed internet as a basic amenity for citizens, like running water or the electricity grid. But as the concept expands so does the battle with big business. Via [news.bbc.co.uk]

Amidst the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, a bit of the future made an auspicious debut. The FCC allowed an isolated temporary shelter in rural Louisiana to use the still-experimental technology WiMAX (basically, Wi-Fi’s big brother) as a powerful, high-speed wireless link to the nearest functioning Internet connection point, fifteen miles away. WiMAX worked flawlessly —...

New technology promises to increase the speed of wireless networks by a factor of 20, but the emerging standard is being delayed by vendors squabbling. Via [insight.zdnet.co.uk]

Google Inc. is not the only company that thinks San Francisco's proposed wireless network can be free to the city and its residents. Via [sfgate.com]

This year will be the year that EarthLink, one of the country's largest ISPs, decided to cast its future success with wireless communications. Via [wirelessweek.com]