Researchers at the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a new technology that will allow neighbors to share bandwidth without having to worry of security or privacy threats. The 1MB Practical End-host collaborative Residential Multihoming (PERM) software file is now downloadable and can be accessed by users with broadband subscriptions. Haiyun Luo, an...

Vonage users in the U.K. can now make free phone calls so long as they are within The Cloud hotspot. If they however wander outside the coverage, the calls will be dropped off. Vonage Managing Director Kerry Ritz deemed the new service "a wake-up call for the telecoms market," as "it's saying there's really a...

A lack of harmony between different countried available spectrum could hinder or even hurt WiMAx. The nearly universal availability of the 2.4Ghz spectrum is likely one of it's strong points. WiMax does'nt have that availability. If countries don't have a common spectrum allocation, manufacturers will have to make many different radios. This means more cost...

Vint Cerf, VP and Internet evangelist at Google, asserts that broadband service providers could use some competition. Cerf, who helped create the foundations for today's Internet, says cable modems from cable companies, along with DSL lines from wireline phone companies, are the two most common Internet access technologies, yet both are mostly inadequate for the...

Linksys has joined the Pre-N crowd with the WRT300N. Performance is impressive, but there is still the question of future interoperability since the 802.11n standard has not been ratified. There are also some technical glitches to work out, such as the interference problem with older 802.11g gear. Early adopters should beware they are purchasing in...

New developments from a professor at the University of Rochester might make WiFi less power hungry. The new chips use an analog rather than digital clock to frequency match. Fewer digital operations means less power consumed. Hopefully this technology can make it into production chipsets in the near future as everyone would like more battery...

The FCC allocated parts of the 2.5 Ghz spectrum for schools to use for educational broadcasts. Unfortunatly it has'nt really been used and the FCC is threatening to take away the valuable spectrum in 2008 unless they start using it. The solution for some seems to be a mobile WiMax installation the provide low-income students...

Being first-on-the-block-to-own-them might backfire with the newly-released 802.11n WiFi products. Early testing suggests the products, based on draft versions of the 802.11n standard, aren't meeting expectations raised by marketing hype. The new technology promises increased speed (over current 802.11g technology) and interoperability between 802.11n products when connecting to wireless access points. MIMO technology (multiple-in, multiple-out)...

WiFi-N devices, which perform up to 5 times faster than their standard version cousins WiFi-A, -B, and -G, boast speeds as high as 270 million bits per second. While real-world speeds will be lower by as much as half that, they're still faster than current speeds of about 54 million bits per second. Consumers, however,...

Teyew Sin Siew, head of telecoms research at Frost & Sullivan, expects high-speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) to delay WiMax's adoption in Asia. The market analyst ascribed the scenario to the massive investment and commitment to nationwide 3G coverage as companies will acquire fewer costs when they upgrade to HSDPA, otherwise known as 3.5G. Whereas...

Motorola bought up Orthogon systems today for an unknown sum. The company builds enterprise networking gear utilizing a composite of radio bands giving them a high noise resistance and the ability to punch through obstacles. Orthogon has many deployments around the world including mesh and WiMax. Via [vnunet.com]

Come October 2006, hackers in New York City's Westchester County will hit a wall -- a firewall, to be exact. A new law, considered to be one of the first of its type in the country, will force Westchester businesses using wireless technology to secure their networks from hackers in order to protect customers' personal...

Municiple WiFi seems to have a problem. Millions are spent to set it up, but no one wants to pay to use it. This is the problem faced by some municipal and city-wide network installations. The solution seems to be with third party partnerships that allow for advertising and pay-for-higher-speeds plans, as is the case...

The 802.11s task force has gotten down to work. The task force is trying to come up with a mesh networking spec to finally define how to do it. Motorola has already taken the preliminary draft and stated that their software already supports it. As with most standards task forces, this one looks to have...

Manufacturers are rushing pre 802.11n gear out the door without knowing if the gear will work in 18 months. WiMax is rolling into areas already loaded with wired competition. How are these guys going to make money? Any responsible consumer, unless they have a urgent need for the higher bandwidth of 802.11n and can afford...