Westcon to distribute Firetide wireless mesh networks

Firetide announced a distribution agreement with Comstor, a division of Westcon Group, a global specialty distributor of networking and communications equipment. Under the terms of the agreement, Comstor will provide worldwide distribution and a full range of support services for Firetide outdoor and indoor wireless mesh networks. Said Albert Tan, managing director of Comstor Singapore, “Firetide’s mesh network is the best solution for wireless video surveillance, and it also scales well from enterprise LANs to large municipal Wi-Fi installations.”

More Tiny Towns Get MuniFied

This week alone three tiny towns - Vail in Colorado along with Rockland and Thomaston in Maine - unwired their future. Vail, selected CenturyTel to build its system following a competitive bid process that included proposals from six other companies. The deal is pretty much the same as in other towns that have been unwired.Free Internet access up to 300Kbps (kilobits per second) anywhere in town by the end of 2006. Vail will also offer higher speeds on a daily, weekly and monthly pay cycle. The situation in Rockland and Thomaston, both communities in Maine the situation was the one faced by many small communities. There was little or no broadband. The two towns teamed up with RedZone Wireless, that built the network, and now sells broadband in the $19.95 to $50.00 per month range. All three deployments are using Skypilot Networks’ equipment.

Some AC Transit buses to offer Wi-Fi

AC Transit is set to become the first public bus system in Northern California, and one of a handful nationwide, to offer free wireless Internet service -- a potential tool to increase ridership in the tech-savvy Bay Area. The agency plans to provide Wi-Fi access on the crossbay routes that link the East Bay to San Francisco and the Peninsula. Testing is scheduled to begin next week, with the goal to have service running by midfall.

Unwired Melbourne

Unwired Australia has lit up four more towers in Melbourne (pdf) as part of its ongoing network expansion. The carrier's network now covers more than a quarter of a million Melbourne homes via its personal wireless broadband network. BigAir to sell Unwired's laptop wireless card, a Navini device that's upgradeable to Mobile WiMAX. Unwired's selection of Allot is a repeat of the provider's experience in Sydney where Allot NetEnforcer AC-1000 units are deployed at critical points in Unwired's wireless broadband network to enable real-time monitoring and dynamic control of bandwidth use."

CalAmp Awarded Digital Beamforming Patent?

The U.S. Patent Office has awarded Oxnard, CA-based CalAmp Corp. (Nasdaq: CAMP) a patent for a system and method for wireless transceivers that receive and transmit signals from an array of antennas which are connected to spatial processing channels.

WiMAX Market Research

"WiMAX - A Market Update (2006-2007) gives an overview of the current WiMAX market, reviewing potential applications and users along with the upcoming trends.

Microsoft's Hotspot Test Run

Microsoft is making a late push into the WiFi hotspot market as part of its Windows Live initiative. Microsoft started sending the Windows Live WiFi Suite beta program invitations this week. The package includes hotspot discovery capabilities, an 'intelligent connection' manager, VPN security, and hotspot locator software. The company touts the system as 'a fast and easy way to find Hotspots without having to go to a Webpage.'

Fiber vs. Wi-Fi in SF

San Francisco city officials are apparently split on how to best bring broadband to the city, and are exploring both wireless technology and fiber as options, notes the San Francisco Bay Guardian. While the city is hashing out the details of a private/public citywide Wi-Fi contract with Earthlink, some officials are also exploring the idea of the city laying fiber themselves.

Deutsche Telekom's Has 17,000 Hotspots

T-Com and T-Mobile now have roughly 17,000 owned hotspots - the largest international public WiFi network in the world, according to Deutsche Telekom.

Conventions: The MIMO Frontier?

Providing wireless access at a convention center can be tough. Organizers never know exactly how many WiFi users will log onto the network at any given time, which can lead to some major access challenges for these large-scale 802.11 deployments. Smart City Networks has been working with enterprise wireless LAN vendor Bluesocket Inc. since February of this year on installing the firm's BlueSecure 5000 controllers at some of its major sites. Smart City plans to evaluate Bluesocket's multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) access points to see if this new wave of WiFi technology can help with the specific requirements of convention center deployments.

100 Nodes from BelAir in Galt, CA Network

Softcom, a local ISP, deployed the network in June 2005. They use over 100 nodes from BelAir. Softcom decided not to work with the city. They installed the access points on rooftops of businesses and residents, and those who signed up to host the wireless nodes were offered discounted access to the Internet. Softcom’s network does not cover 100% of the community because Galt is growing rapidly (over 17% in the past four years), and as it continues to grow, so does the wireless network.

Pipex announces WiMAX trial results

Pipex announced results for the latest phase of its WiMAX trial in Stratford-upon-Avon. Speeds achieved were: 2Mbps down/2Mbps up indoors at 1.2km (.75 miles); with 10Mbps down/9Mbps up using external antennas at that distance; and 6Mbps down/4 Mbps up, using external antennas at 6km (3.7 miles). Speeds in excess of 2Mbps (both up and down) were achieved indoors at a range of 1.2km (.75 miles) from the base station with no direct line of sight. Drive tests using the indoor antenna in a vehicle at various distances from the base station showed symmetric speeds of 5Mbps.

SkyPilot, CenturyTel to Deliver Vail Municipal Wi-Fi Network

SkyPilot Networks announced that the Town of Vail awarded CenturyTel the contract to build and operate the Wi-Fi network, powered by SkyPilot equipment. Residents, businesses and visitors will be able to get free Internet access up to 300Kbps (kilobits per second) anywhere in town in one hour increments by the end of 2006. Faster Internet service with speeds up to 3Mbps (megabits per second) will be available with pay plans for daily, weekly or monthly access.

Ball State University Deploys Firetide Wireless Mesh

Ball State University, named Intel's 'Most Unwired Campus' in 2005, deployed Firetide's mesh solution to provide students with a variety of wireless services including live video and a mobile WiFi mesh network for the campus shuttle bus.

FCC AWS Auction Hot and Heavy

With $12.4 billion in bids so far, this FCC auction may indeed surpass the expected $!6 billion the FCC wanted. The top-5 bidders so far include on surprise. The top-5 are T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless, Sprint's joint venture with four cable companies, MetroPCS and Cingular Wireless.

LA Muni-Fi Filters Smut, P2P

Culver City, California was the first Los Angeles municipality to offer the public a free all-access Wi-Fi network. They're also the first to ban all porn and p2p from that network. The city says they've added Audible Magic's CopySense Network Appliance to filter illegal and 'problematic content' from their network. Once installed, the Audible Magic Copysense device digs through all network traffic looking for legit audio or video fingerprints in an effort to weed out copyrighted files based on a master database. The device can also throttle back p2p bandwidth, or prevent p2p altogether.

FTC chief critiques Net neutrality

The head of the Federal Trade Commission on Monday expressed sharp skepticism toward proposed laws that would levy extensive Net neutrality regulations on broadband providers.

Wi-Fi Protected Setup's First Software Support

Devicescape Software of San Bruno, California today announced the latest version of its software for Wi-Fi device manufacturers, Devicescape Agent. Of note in this version: it’s the first announced software to support the Wi-Fi Protected Setup security standard soon to come from the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Verizon's Doublespeak

With it's new "supplier surcharge," Verizon is proving why the country needs a viable alternative to wired broadband Internet access. Verizon has replaced their public service obligation to help support the Universal Service Fund (basically the funding that helps pay for services to the rural, underserved, etc.) with a direct subsidy to the corporation itself.

Dvorak: The Google Ploy -- A Revolution?

What if Google discovers that localized Wi-Fi service combined with localized search and local advertising (specific to the target community, such as Mountain View) can not only pay for the system but provide a new profit center? What happens if that turns out to be an unintended consequence?

A World Beyond Dial-Up

EarthLink's Philadephia metro Wi-Fi project is costing $85,000 a square mile, or $10 million to $15 million to the city, according to this New York Times profile.

Beaming broadband to the beach

A business idea worth exploring, according to Business 2.0: Set up wireless networks to deliver broadband to narrowly targeted groups of customers - tourists and well-to-do Brazilians at beach resorts. :You have this tremendous pent-up demand for broadband access,' says Charles Brown, president of California-based Wireless Networks, which sets up high-speed Wi-Fi for rural locales and founded a Brazilian company that handles wireless payments for retail merchants. "There just isn't anything there."

MetroFi needs to draw enough ads to make service add profits

"There is no proven Wi-Fi model yet, but we believe free is the best. Everyone loves free. You don't have to pull out your credit card if you just want to use your laptop,' said Chuck Haas in the San Francisco Chronicle's profile of MetroFi. 'If you're on for an hour at Starbucks, our incremental cost is zero. We may have made only a dime or a quarter off of you, but do that many times and you can see that's a good business model."

Midcoast Maine Goes Live with RedZone Wireless, Powered by SkyPilot

SkyPilot Networks, the leading provider of carrier-class broadband wireless mesh networks, today announced that the communities of Rockland and Thomaston are fully operational with a wireless network built by RedZone Wireless, a pioneer in providing affordable wireless Internet services in Maine, powered by SkyPilot equipment. The RedZone wireless network services the Rockland-Thomaston communities in several key areas: providing Internet access where there previously was none; offering affordable broadband options via multi-tier subscriptions ranging from $19.95 to $50.00 per month; and in the interest of public safety, increasing security as a mechanism for law enforcement personnel to access critical databases and file police reports from the field.

Sunnyvale expands free Wi-Fi to library

Sunnyvale officials announced Friday that free Wi-Fi access is now available at the city's library, on West Olive Avenue. Free Wi-Fi access is already available in Sunnyvale's downtown business district and the same company, MetroFi, has expanded service to the library."

Robot blimp may provide wireless

Giant airships positioned 13 miles up, able to provide broadband and wireless service to a land-mass roughly the size of Texas? The first "stratellite" prototype was unveiled last April and the first test flight is scheduled later this month in the Mojave Desert. These initial tests will be tethered, and the airships will be about one-fifth the size of the real thing, according to the report. This test airship is expected to float to 45,000 feet for several hours; the real thing is expected to stay aloft for 18 months at a time.

Firetide Supplies Wireless Mesh for Singapore National Stadium

Firetide supplied equipment for a wireless mesh network at the National Stadium in Singapore. The wireless network, provided by Singaporean distributor D-Synergy and installed by Internet Service Provider iCELL Network, served as a wireless infrastructure for the National Day Parade celebration at the stadium allowing video surveillance cameras and Wi-Fi access points to be deployed without cabling."

WLAN Market Down

Synergy Research Group says the overall WLAN market worldwide took a dip in the second quarter of 2006, by 3% from the first quarter. But overall, it was up 14% compared to Q2 of 2005. Enterprise sales, as usual led by Cisco (down 4% from Q1), were flat. Consumer/SOHO sales of Wi-Fi equipment were down 4%, led by Linksys (a Cisco subsidiary), which was down 2% quarter-to-quarter. Synergy notes that Q2 precedes back-to-school and holiday purchases, so a rebound by Q3 is a possibility.

Tropos Raises the Bet

"The new 5320 outdoor MetroMesh router is the first dual-radio node from Tropos. To date the company has stressed the ability of the software on its single-radio devices to keep up with throughput in outdoor wireless networks, while competitors like BelAir Networks Inc. have been producing multi-radio setups for more than a year."