Cablevision, with most of its customers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and parts of Pennsylvania, plans to build a WiFi network covering its footprint within the next two years. The WiFi infrastructure would cost the company about $100 per customer, according to Chief Operating Officer Tom Rutledge. Cablevision currently has about 3.1 million cable customers on Long Island and in other areas around New York.

Subscribers of its Optimum cable modem service will get to use the wireless network free.

“The primary purpose is a free, value-added service to new or existing customers,” said Phil Solis, an analyst with ABI Research. That’s what sets this network apart from some of the other municipal networks that have failed, he said.

The company is already offering the Wi-Fi services in some areas, said COO Rutledge, speaking on Thursday during a conference call to discuss financial earnings.

The network should be relatively easy for Cablevision to build since the company already has a network of high-speed lines to attach Wi-Fi access points to. Radios like BelAir’s 100S are designed for mounting on existing cable infrastructure.

EarthLink currently operates Wi-Fi networks in a handful of cities, but is now selling its municipal Wi-Fi business unit.

Cable might seem well positioned to take over failing municipal wireless services, but licensed WiMAX frequencies, generating more revenue from mobile voice and data (with reliability, penetration and maintenance advantages), appears to have won over the largest cable operators for now.

Related DailyWireless articles include; FON + T/W Cable = Public Hotspots, Cable WiFi: The Neutron Dance, Scientific Atlanta Meshes with Tropos, Time/Warner Wireless?, Wireless Cable and Cable vs Digital Cities: Championship Fight.

Last week AT&T had quietly begun offering iPhone users access to their Wi-Fi hotspots for free. Then the service was abruptly turned off.

AT&T has remained quiet about this new offering, but it’s clear they will be officially delivering this service shortly — perhaps “free” with AT&T’s data plan.

The battle between free and paid wireless Internet access is starting to look like a draw. Or more accurately, a third variation is winning — a combination of the two, says the New York Times.

The key goal is to allow users to maintain key personal data at sites like MySpace and not have it be locked up in an island. Previously users could turn much of this data into widgets and add them to third party sites. But that doesn’t bridge the gap between independent, autonomous websites, MySpace says.

MySpace is a partner in Google’s OpenSocial project, but this is being done outside of that framework, says Tech Crunch. MySpace says they’ll adopt the Open Social APIs that evolve around data sharing once they are developed and announced.

A growing number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide are taking online social networking to the streets, according to research conducted by The Nielsen Company.

The findings show that the U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis — with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers

In the U.K., approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers, or 1.7 percent of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That reach percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets-though similar to the U.S., where 1.6 percent of all mobile subscribers (4.1 million in all) accessed social networks via their phones in December 2007.

Verizon Wireless is the first wireless provider to feature NAVTEQ Traffic Mobile, enabling customers to access live traffic data on their mobile devices in more than 75 cities across the U.S., including visual notification of incidents and congestion that allow drivers to see potential traffic delays and avoid traffic problems.

VZ Navigator (Version 4) is available today for $9.99 for unlimited monthly access or $2.99 for one-day use.

Of course with an open architecture, you can get many services free.

Google Maps now features traffic congestion maps and lets you know how long a drive might take in rush-hour traffic, for a limited set of metropolitan areas.

Traffic congestion maps produce a graphical, realtime or near-realtime representation of traffic flow. They generally utilize loop sensors embedded in the roadways, with the data freely available by a variety of state transportation authorities.

Traffic.com, a NAVTEQ company, is a leading provider of personalized traffic information and has launched JamCast for real-time traffic video in 30 metropolitan areas across the U.S.. JamCast features patented Jam Factor roadway traffic measurements that allow commuters to easily understand the relative congestion level with a number on a scale from 1 to 10.

Traffic.com also offers service to mobile phones and PDAs. Traffic.com also offers text alerts — go to mobi.traffic.com on your mobile web browser, then text your city code.

Google Transit covers some 23 U.S. cities and the national mass transit system of Japan and bigger cities in Australia and Europe. Go to Google Maps. Type in a query for directions.

If your results include a button for “Take Public Transit,” Google Transit will spell out directions to the closest station or bus stop, including schedule information.

Microsoft has a Web-based service that helps users avoid traffic jams. The new service’s software technology, called Clearflow (pdf), was developed at the company’s Research lab and will be freely available as part of the company’s Live.com site (maps.live.com) for 72 cities in the United States.

Related transit connectivity stories on DailyWireless include; Google Transit Maps + WiFi, Passive Cellular Tracking, Navigation by Cell Phone, Fish Net, TomTom Buying Tele Atlas, Tracking Vehicles: Good to Go, Mobilizing WiFi on Trains & Cars, Traffic Mapping, 3-D Traffic/Weather Maps.

It includes categories of VoIP, Corporate Blogs, Mobile Blogs, Wireless Blogs, Outside the U.S., Niche, Toys and Gadgets. Check it out and let Jimmy Atkinson, editor of VoIP Now, know if he missed any obvious ones.

Yes, it’s time for the Worst WiFi Hotels of 2008.

It’s WiFi Week at Hotel Chatter. They started off with the Best WiFi Hotels of 2008, perhaps not as entertaining but probably more useful. Here are the Best and Worst International Hotels, too.

Earthlink, which stopped accepting new customers last week, has given the city until tomorrow to come up with a plan to take over the system or it could begin to take down the network, according to sources close to discussions. An original deadline of last Wednesday came and passed.

The city has been working since Earthlink announced intentions to leave the municipal wireless business last year to salvage the system without taxpayer dollars, including so far unsuccessful discussions with an Ohio nonprofit that recieved $25 million to work on bridging the technological divide between rich and poor.

“We have been participating in discussions about what options and opportunites may exist,” said Douglas Oliver, spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter. “We paid a lot of attention to this and explored several different options but they have proven to be fruitless.”

Originally, the plan was for Earthlink to build a citywide wireless network, sign up customers, and fund a non-profit called Wireless Philadelphia to provide internet access to low-income individuals.

The problem is that Earthlink couldn’t figure out a way to build the network profitably. The municipal network was originally expected to use 25 nodes per square mile, but required as many as 47, with an average of 42 nodes per square mile.

The company has stopped expanding the network with about 70% completed, and is no longer looking to sign up new customers. The entire project is basically at a standstill and will remain that way until sold to another operator.

In other [bad] news, MuniWireless reports that Wildfire Broadband appears to have shut down its Wi-Fi service in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona. According to the East Valley Tribune, “the paid service meant to capitalize on flashy new downtown projects and an influx of new residents had to compete with free Wi-Fi service that has become increasingly commonplace at coffee shops, restaurants and hotels.”

DailyWireless has more than 650 related Municipal Wireless stories including; 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.

Sensor networks may be the next big thing. Companies like Arch Rock and Dust Networks already are fielding small battery-backed sensor nodes. The IETF 6lowpan Working Group aims to define the transport of IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4 low-power wireless personal area networks.

The ROLL effort aims to create a standard way to link such nodes and their networks with the broader Internet. It will support any link including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 802.15.4.

The ZigBee Alliance is an association of companies working together to enable low-power, wireless monitoring and control networks based on an open global standard. ZigBee is working towards further standardization for wireless sensor and control markets, based on IEEE 802.15.4, a standard that defines the wireless medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY). It was approved during the sponsored ballot in May 2003.

Smart Dust and TinyOS projects, were developed at UC Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS).

“There has been an explosion of proprietary protocols for sensor networks in the last five years,” said Jean-Philippe Vasseur, an engineer at Cisco who will co-chair ROLL.

“When each one aims to become an ad hoc standard you wind up with a model of many translation gateways that leads to a complex and expensive architecture that doesn’t scale,” he said.

The market for sensor networks is still relatively small, but analysts expect it will grow dramatically over time.

In related news, ORBCOMM today announced that it has signed a next generation satellite constellation contract with Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) to build 18 new ORBCOMM Generation 2 satellites providing two-way Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communicationan. ORBCOMM may purchase up to 30 additional OG2 satellites to augment and upgrade ORBCOMM’s existing satellite constellation.

SNC, Boeing and ITT will provide oversight, systems engineering, technical management, and integration of the OG2 program. MicroSat Systems (MSI), a wholly owned subsidiary of SNC, will leverage its experience on the TacSat-2 mission to design the spacecraft and perform integration and test activities for the OG2 satellites.

ORBCOMM customers will be able to transmit data over the OG2 satellites at greater speeds and send larger data packets using future modems. In addition, all OG2 satellites will be designed with Automatic Identification System that tracks maritime vessels by integrating GPS and Loran location data into a VHF radio signal.

ORBCOMM will market AIS data to U.S. and international coast guards and government agencies, as well as companies engaged in security or logistics businesses for tracking shipping activities. They anticipate selecting the launch vehicle within 12 months and plan to launch 18 OG2 satellites in three separate missions of six satellites each between 2010 and 2011.

Related Bluetooth, RFID and Zigbee stories on Dailywireless include; Kids Unwire Salmon Stream, Low Power WiFi Sensor, Grape Networks, Spy Squirrels, Sensors Expo 2007, Open Source Zigbee Net, MaxStream ZigBee module, RF-ID Giants Merge, Realtime Tracking: WiFi is the Ticket, RFID Tracking via Dutch Umbrella, Active ID & Temperature: On the Road, Small Satellite Conference and DOD Double Header at Canaveral.

The deal (pdf), announced on Wednesday, will provide funding for Sprint and Clearwire to build the network and allow cable providers to offer wireless services to help them compete with rivals AT&T and Verizon. It will use Sprint’s existing broadcast wireless towers and its wired fiber network.

Clearwire will be the only company allowed to sell 4G access as a standalone service, according to Sprint CTO Berry West. Sprint will essentially access the network as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), selling combined 3G and 4G access plans.

Sprint, which had earlier said they’d spend some $5 billion by 2010 building their WiMAX network across the United States, will now own about 51 percent of the new company. Sprint’s new partners will now invest some $3 billion. Clearwire will own about 27 percent. Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, Google and Bright House will get a combined 22 percent.

Google will embed its Android operating system for mobile phones. Google will also be the search provider for the company’s WiMax services.

Intel will work with manufacturers to embed WiMax chips into its Centrino 2 processor for laptops and mobile Internet devices and will market the new company’s service in association with its own brand.

The partners have put the value of the deal at $12 billion, a figure that includes radio spectrum and equipment provided by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, and $3.2 billion from the others involved.

The investments by other participants include $1.05 billion from Comcast, $1 billion from Intel, $550 million from Time Warner Cable, $100 million from Bright House, a cable provider, and $500 million from Google. Trilogy Equity Partners, intends to invest $10 million, according to a person briefed on the arrangement.

Analysis by Juniper Research indicates up to 12% of the global DSL installed base will be substituted by WiMAX by 2013. The Far East will lead with over one fifth of the 47 million subscribers in 2013.

According to Unstrung:

Clearwire has been putting its planned WiMax offering through its paces in Portland, Ore., where, according to Clearwire’s CEO Ben Wolff, the company has been achieving up to 6 Mbit/s downstream and up to 3 Mbit/s upstream in vehicles traveling at 60 miles per hour.

“Based on our experience in Portland, we’ll be able to exceed anything that the legacy mobile networks can offer. We aim to provide four times the performance at one tenth of the cost of the legacy wireless networks,” stated Wolff, though he didn’t comment on how competitive the prices would be.

Currently, AT&T’s USB data card costs $99 and $60/month for unlimited usage, Sprint’s USB EVDO modem costs $99, plus $60 a month and Verizon charges $149 for their USB modem and $60-per-month — but only for 5Gb per month. Beyond that, it charges a stunning 49 cents per Mb.

Sprint’s new WiMAX network will likely deliver faster speeds at less cost with more flexibility.

The Mobile WiMAX network will cover 120-140 million people in the U.S. by year-end 2010. If those people are using Android devices, Google will indeed become a force in the market, although still behind Symbian and Windows Mobile. The NY Times, Blog Runner, C/Net, Telephony and MultiChannel News have more.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Mobile WiMAX Cooking- But Still in the Kitchen, WiMAX Roundup, Australia Unwired, Australian Blowup, BT’s European WiMAX Plan, Backhaul Delays Xohm Rollout, Hesse on WiMAX, Sprint’s WiMAX Rollout?, Sprint-Clearwire Deal Dead, Sprint Considering WiMAX Spinoff?, Sprint Forces Forsee Out, WiMAX Demoed on Chicago River, The Launch, ICO Wants Its Mobile TV - via DVB-SH, Google Apps for Clearwire, Sprint WiMAX: It’s Called “Xohm”, Xohm “Partners”?, Death to WiMAX?, Verizon: It’s LTE, and Sprint: It’s WiMAX!

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
- Once in a Lifetime

Sprint, Comcast, Google, Time Warner and Intel will launch a Mobile WiMAX Joint Venture, says the Wall Street Journal. More from NY Times, GigaOm, ArsTechnica and Blogrunnner.

As early as Wednesday, an unlikely alliance of titans from the cable, Internet and chip industries will disclose they are investing $3.2 billion in a company that will deliver Web access for cellphones and laptops at speeds much faster than what is available today using a technology called WiMax.

Analysts say the venture, valued at more than $12 billion, will have a two year head-start on rivals Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc., which are just beginning to sketch out plans for their next-generation wireless networks.

The deal gives the cable operators and Google prominent roles in shaping the future of mobile Internet access. The venture must still be approved by federal regulators.

The deal is most of all a coup for Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, who four months ago was charged with rescuing Sprint from near-disaster.

“It’s sort of like, ‘Dan, you haven’t vacuumed the bedroom,”‘ Mr. Hesse said. “Well, that’s because the house is on fire. I will get around to it later.”

Last January, Mr. Hesse called Comcast Chief Executive Brian L. Roberts to explore a deal. Mr. Roberts was receptive, partly because he thought the new Sprint CEO might be easier to work with, and partly because he was beginning to see WiMax as an opportunity to confront his own strategic dilemma.

In early February, Mr. Roberts took a trip out to Portland, Ore., to test Clearwire’s nascent WiMax service there and meet with Mr. McCaw. He came away impressed with the technology, say people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Hesse leaned on Mr. Roberts to round up other cable operators, including Time Warner Cable and a regional provider, Bright House. The cable executives raised several concerns, people familiar with the meeting say. The most pressing issue: They wanted to make sure the new company would be able to use Sprint’s existing “third generation” broadband network until the WiMax network is nationwide, which could take a few years.

Reeling in Google proved especially difficult. Google CEO Eric Schmidt wouldn’t return Mr. Hesse’s phone calls. Mr. Roberts, who had developed a close relationship with the Google CEO, stepped in. He made a pitch on Mr. Hesse’s behalf, then connected the two via email to get a discussion going, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Hesse promised to make Google the preferred software developer on the WiMax network, meaning its search service would be the default on new mobile devices.

At times, the sessions got heated. At one meeting in the New York offices of law firm Kirkland & Ellis, Clearwire Chief Executive Ben Wolff was so frustrated with the lack of progress that he pulled his team from the room, shouting “That’s it, the deal’s off,” according to a person at the meeting.

By mid-March, the outlines of a deal were in place, though it would take two more months to iron out details. The new company secured $1.05 billion from Comcast, $1 billion from Intel, $500 million from Google, $550 million from Time Warner and $100 million from Bright House.

Sprint will hold a majority stake in the new venture. Mr. Hesse agreed to give up day-to-day control to Clearwire’s Mr. Wolff, who is slated to be CEO. Mr. McCaw is expected to be named chairman. The new company will take on Clearwire’s name.

Not mentioned was the mobile tv component. Perhaps Craig McCaw’s ICO G-1 will be drafted for DVB-SH. When ICO’s mobile TV service goes live in 2009, it will focus on in-vehicle displays with larger screen resolution and 10 to 15 channels at 500 kb/s channel, plus two-way capabilities for vehicle navigation and emergency two-way calling and messaging.

But if Sprint spins off WiMAX, sells Nextel and DT buys Sprint, what would be left?

And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?…Am I wrong?

Into the blue again/after the money’s gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Related Dailywireless articles include; Mobile WiMAX Cooking- But Still in the Kitchen, WiMAX Roundup, Australia Unwired, Australian Blowup, BT’s European WiMAX Plan, Backhaul Delays Xohm Rollout, Hesse on WiMAX, Sprint’s WiMAX Rollout?, Xohm “Partners”?, Death to WiMAX?, Verizon: It’s LTE, and Sprint: It’s WiMAX!