Three finalists have been selected to bring wireless Internet service to 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley.

Cupertino-based MetroFi (pdf), Portland, Ore.-based VeriLAN (pdf) and a consortium of four companies calling itself the Silicon Valley Metro Connect Team (pdf) will enter the next round of negotiations with the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force, reports the San Jose Business Journal.

According to the Mercury News:

A winner will be selected in early September and construction could begin next year, said Seth Fearey, project leader of the Wireless Silicon Valley effort. He declined to predict when the wireless network would be available to the public.

“No one has done what we’re asking these guys to do,” Fearey said.

About 40 cities, counties and government agencies contributed money to be involved in the project, which includes agreeing on a provider and a contract that could serve the area. The cities won’t be required to use the selected vendor and contract.

The task force hopes to select a finalist and a runner-up for final approval by the end of August. The recommendation than goes to the full board, which in turn will submit it to the San Mateo Telecommunications Authority to handle the actual contract.

From there, all 40 participating cities must give their approval before any work on developing the gigantic wireless hotspot takes place. Cost of the project could reach $75 million.

Partners of the Wireless Silicon Valley Project include; San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority (SAMCAT), Silicon Valley Economic Development Alliance, The Wireless Communications Alliance, San Jose Convention Center and Visitors Bureau and Intel Solution Services.

Silicon Valley Metro Connect Team (above) and the VeriLAN proposal (pdf) utilize Cisco access points while MetroFi uses SkyPilot mesh gear with DragonWave backhaul.

Besides being one of most ambitious municipal WiFi projects in the country, the network is being developed specifically to avoid some of the pitfalls that have beset other city-wide networks, according to Unstrung.

“First of all, we do not have politicians leading this project,” says Seth Fearey, the executive director of Smart Valley. “That simplifies a lot of things.”

Second, the Silicon Valley network is not focused on bridging the digital divide by bringing free or low-cost Internet access to low-income residents — a driving purpose, at least ostensibly, behind many muni WiFi projects. “It was more important to us to have a viable business plan, so that we can offer a tiered service that most people in the region can afford.”

The task force envisions continuous wireless Internet access as far north as South San Francisco, south to Santa Cruz and east to Fremont, Union City and Newark. Here are maps from Santa Cruz Bike Map, Santa Clara Bike Map, Alameda Bike Map, and the San Mateo Bike Map.

Perhaps the Chief Information Officers of Washington, Oregon and California should create a series of hyperspace bypass tubes (audio).

Related DailyWireless articles include; Wireless Silicon Valley Proposals, Silicon Valley Gets Proposals for Huge Wireless Network, Silicon Valley & New York Clouds, Silicon Valley Cloud, 487 mile Hwy Cloud, Digital City Winners, GoogleFi Test Drive, AT&T + MetroFi, VeriLAN Tests Prototype Outdoor Vivato and First Commercial 802.16a Switched On.

Municipal Wireless | No Comments »

Globalstar (wikipedia), the LEO satellite phone provider competing with Iridium (wikipedia), announced today a new weather resistant satellite data modem. The SkyHawk M1620 Satellite Modem provides a ready to use solution for Globalstar customers who require satellite connectivity for their laptop computer or other data only applications.

The SkyHawk modem ($1595), is designed to reduce the time needed to build a final solution. It uses less than 2 Watts standby and provides a 9.6 Kbps satellite link (without compression). The “all in one” design can be easily adapted for a variety of applications that require basic communication interfaces.

Designed and assembled by Blue Oceans Satellite Systems, the unit integrates a QUALCOMM GSP-1620 duplex satellite modem, complete with a serial cable connection plus a sealed weather resistant enclosure. It can be used for both maritime and land based applications.

Globalstar airtime plans are designed to suit a variety of remote communications needs. Globalstar also announced a new promotion in the United States that will effectively reduce the per minute rate charged for satellite airtime to as low as nine cents per minute, when customers activate a new phone on one of the company’s highest usage satellite rate plans.

“Reducing the amount of time needed to develop and bring a product to market is key for many integrators and Globalstar is pleased to offer a solution designed to meet those requirements,” said Steven Bell, Senior VP of Marketing for Globalstar.

Orbcomm (wikipedia), also provides a range of LEO satellite data solutions (above). Unlike GlobalStar and Iridium, the LEO orbiting Orbcomm system is data-only (no voice). It provides service similar to two-way paging or e-mail. Ground terminals use economical VHF radios.

ORBCOMM sells airtime exclusively through Value-Added Resellers who provide the hardware, software and airtime to end-users. Mobile Asset Resellers use Orbcomm’s satellites to track vehicles or monitor remote sites using compact data terminals. Automotive giant Delphi is using a satellite modem, the DS300, to phone home (pdf). It is the first programmable, GPS-enabled modem to be offered for less than $200 for use on the ORBCOMM satellite network. It will support transportation, heavy equipment and marine companies.

Gadgets, Space & Satellites, Transit Connectivity | No Comments »

Cingular customers will have to pay an extra $5 a month beginning in September if they use older TDMA or analog phones. Cingular wants to move all of its customers to the newer GSM technology to harmonize their operations with the global standard and maximize their operational efficiency.

Cingular hopes to turn off access to their older TDMA network when the company shuts down its analog (800 Mhz) service in February 2008. Customers of older phones sometimes treasure the longer range and penetrating power of older phones, however.

Phones less than 3 years old are probably okay and not subject to the additional monthly fee. Cingular phones without a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM card), are likely to be subject to the $5/mo fee. The detachable SIM card is a part of the GSM standard. It contain a user’s subscription information and phonebook.

In 1983, cellular service began when the Advanced Mobile Phone Service was approved by the FCC. AMPS began with a duopoly of two wireless carriers (the local telco and a competing company) and used the lower 850 Mhz frequencies. Car phones and “bag” phones provided the necessary long range as cellular networks began to sprout over the entire world.

According to How Stuff Works; a single cell in an analog system uses one-seventh of the available duplex voice channels. Each cell has a unique set of frequencies to eliminate interference between cells.

• A cell-phone carrier typically gets 832 radio frequencies to use in a city.
• Each cell phone uses two frequencies per call — a duplex channel — so there are typically 395 voice channels per carrier. (The other 42 frequencies are used for control channels)
• Therefore, each cell has about 56 voice channels available.

In other words, in any cell, 56 people can be talking on their cell phone at one time. Analog cellular systems are considered first-generation, or 1G. TDMA (2G) carries three times as many calls using digital compression, so each cell can have about 168 channels. Most sites use fewer radio channels, adding radios as cell site utilization grows.

Analog cellular service in the 800 MHz band also featured Cellular Digital Packet Data (CDPD), which used unused bandwidth, normally wasted by silence in voice calls, to transfer data. Speeds up to 19.2 kbit/s are possible with CDPD. But the tecnology has had difficulty competing against existing slower but less expensive Mobitex and DataTac systems. Newer, faster standards such as GPRS and EDGE have now become dominant.

While cellular was originally created for use in cars, PCS using frequencies between 1850 MHz to 1990 MHz have come to dominate today’s environment. PCS phones are all digital, all the time. PCS has 200-kHz channel spacing and eight time slots instead of the typical 30-kHz channel spacing and three time slots found in digital cellular.

CDMA takes an entirely different approach, explains How Stuff Works. CDMA is a form of spread spectrum, sending data in small pieces over a number of the discrete frequencies. Because CDMA systems need to put an accurate time-stamp on each piece of a signal, it references the GPS system for this information. Between eight and 10 separate calls can be carried in the same channel space as one analog AMPS call. CDMA technology is the basis for Interim Standard 95 (IS-95) and operates in both the 800-MHz and 1900-MHz frequency bands.

Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) is CDMA’s data standard, getting 300-500 Kbps (using 1.25 MHz channels). Data rates fall off quickly with range. EV-DO Rev A boosts the upstream speed while EV-DO Rev B will boost the number of channels (3 x 1.25 MHz channels).

GSM-based cellular service first launched in Finland in 1991. In June, 2006 GSM passed 2 billion users, world-wide. Today, more than 690 mobile networks provide GSM services across 213 countries and 82.4% of all global mobile connections. The U.S. has 78 million GSM users, mostly Cingular and T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon use CDMA and EV-DO for data.

The GSM standard is now the most popular cellular standard in the world. That includes GPRS and the higher speed EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution). EDGE allows higher bit rates of between 160 and 236.8 kbit/s by allocation of more than one time slot in the TDMA frame.

The 3G HSDPA data standard uses 5 Mhz wide (WCDMA) “3G” channels, rather than the earlier 1.25 MHz cellular channels, and typically deliver 400-800 Kbps to users. While analog-based CDPD still has a range advantage over GPRS, EDGE and HSDPA, more cellular antennas have generally compensated for reduced range.

For truly remote needs, LEO Satellite data systems like OrbComm and GlobeStar can cover isolated areas (but at higher cost). One of the rationales of installing muni wireless systems has been the loss of CDPD and the higher costs of their GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA replacements.

Cingular, jointly owned by prospective merger partners AT&T and BellSouth, reported earlier this month that roughly 92% of its 57.3 million customers used GSM phones.

Cellular News, Corporate News | No Comments »

Two computer security conferences kick off this week in Las Vegas; BlackHat and Defcon.

BlackHat, which runs Wednesday and Thursday, is more the university: In its 10th year, it is a corporate-driven event, with an admission fee as high as US$2,500.

By contrast, Defcon, running Friday-Sunday, thrives on chaos, loud parties and is decidedly more anti-establishment. Most attendees are expected to register at the door for $100.

Jeff Moss — a.k.a. “Dark Tangent” — is the founder of Defcon and Black Hat, and was interviewed by the Washington Post (left).

Hackers Jon “Johnny Cache” Ellch and David Maynor plan to show today a security flaw in the Macbook’s wireless “device driver,” underlying OS X operating system. A machine running a vulnerable wireless device driver could be subverted just by being turned on, says the Washington Post blog.

Meanwhile, Intel has issued patches for three vulnerabilities for its wireless hardware and software. Two problems affect certain versions of its Pro/Wireless Network Connection Hardware. Intel said the vulnerabilities lie in drivers from Microsoft. An attacker near a Wi-Fi station could run unauthorized code on a victim’s machine or gain kernel-level privileges.

A third vulnerability affects Intel’s Proset/Wireless Software and could allow a hacker to obtain authentication credentials, Intel said. The 129MB driver download is available from the Intel support website.

Today, at the Black Hat USA security conference, Dan Kaminsky will share details of his traceroute technique, reports ComputerWorld.

Kaminsky’s software, which will eventually be rolled into a free software tool, can tell whether computers are treating some types of TCP/IP traffic better than others — dropping data that is being used in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls or treating encrypted data as second class, for example.

Kaminsky says his “TCP-based Active Probing for Faults” is similar to the Traceroute Internet utility that is used to track the path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.

But unlike Traceroute, Kaminsky’s software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier, or being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped, and could ultimately be used to finger service providers who are treating some network traffic as second-class.

The U.S. Congress is presently debating whether to enact “Net neutrality” laws that would maintain “equal access” to the internet, giving all Internet traffic the same quality of service. Phone companies providing fiber to the home and cable companies do not currently “tier” internet access. Cable companies are not required to provide “wholesale” access to competing broadband providers and soon telephone companies offering fiber to the home, will have similar “rights” since they will own the last mile connection.

Broadband providers say “net neutrality” laws, that would do the same thing for content, could prevent them from developing a new generation of services.

A new distance record was set last year at Defcon for unamplified wireless — 125 miles!

Wifishootout challenges teams to wirelessly connect two computers at extreme distances using stock “WiFi” radios. On July 30, 2005, the efforts the iFiber Redwire team paid off. They drove a trailer loaded with equipment to Utah Hill, near Beaver Dam in the state of Utah. Their comrades were located southwest of Las Vegas at the top of Mount Potosi.

A collection of homemade antennas, surplus 12 foot satellite dishes, home-welded support structures, scaffolds and a couple of 300 mW, Z-Com’s XI-325 radio cards with a power output of +25db and sensitivity of -84db (at 11 Mbps).

The final result was a full 11 Mbps data tranfer rate over a distance of 125 miles, a new world record for an unamplified wireless link.

Defcon is by far the largest annual gathering of hackers in the United States. Moss said he expects between 5,000 and 6,000 people to attend Defcon 14 this year, but he has no real idea how many will show up.

Grass Roots Wireless, Security | No Comments »

Katie Fehrenbacher of GigOm says series of open source projects are tackling high-end switches and wireless networking. She says Vyatta and Digium have based their entire business model on open source software. Digium is the original creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX Meraki Networks, a Mountain View, Calif.-based startup is building a business off of hardware and software based on MIT’s Roofnet project.

The Roofnet Project was previously funded by MIT’s Project Oxygen and NTT DoCoMo. Meraki also consults on mesh-networking related issues for the fabled $100 laptop prototype project. The first offering from the company will likely hit the shelves this fall, and is called the Meraki Mini, which is a $49 wireless 802.11b/g router that allows users to build a wireless mesh network or extend the range of a municipal network.

Sanjit Biswas, the company’s co-founder, and MIT student on-leave, hopes the low-cost hardware will cause a wave in the mesh networking industry, and the company is working on beta-testing this summer. The hardware uses an open platform and the company is encouraging users to tinker around and install their own software. Though, Biswas says the router isn’t completely open source and part of the software is closed.

Biswas says that Meraki’s goal is to enable a grassroots movement of small wireless ISPs by providing them everything they need to get started. “Hardware (the Meraki Mini) is part of the story, but we also have the mature mesh routing software and hosted billing/user management tools operators will need to run a production network.”

Meraki might be one of those startups that is in the right place at the right time. As more cities and companies show interest in muni wireless, wireless networks with open platforms are starting to gain traction. Earlier this month we covered Sascha Meinrath’s NSF grant for his open source wireless mesh project. Earlier this week the Mayor of Boston unveiled plans to bring low-cost metro WiFi access through a non-profit foundation.

Roofnet is an experimental 802.11b/g mesh network in development at MIT CSAIL.

Portland also has a large experimental node (above) using RoofNet and the Netgear Wgt634u. PersonalTelco has been building the Portland RoofNet network. Details are on the PTP’s Wiki and Personal Telco Handbook.

At OSCON last week, Portland’s Personal Telco showed off their open source routers.

Personal Telco’s Russel Senior built a self-contained, battery-powered router using a Netgear WGT-634u (above) which can be configured as a self-contained, mobile WiFi monitor. The router’s USB connection connects to an external GPS dongle, and several hours of readings can be stored on-board. Because it can be battery powered, it can also fit on a bike or placed on the dashboard of a car.

Related DailyWireless articles include; Big Bucks for CUWiN, Recognizing Heros, Community Mesh Developments, Cheap PC Roundup, Ruckus Home Gateway, Sputnik + DD-WRT = Inexpensive WiFi Management, Community LAN Partnership Models, Linksys WRT-54GL and PersonalTelco Hosts Local Music.

Grass Roots Wireless, Open Source | 2 Comments »

Pasadena, California has chosen EarthLink for a 23 square mile municipal WiFi network, says Converge Digest. The deal follows other California wins in Anaheim, Milpitas and San Francisco.

EarthLink will also offer connection services for small businesses including T-1 replacement, and it will work with the city to develop a discount Internet service program for qualified residents.

Earthlink will use Wi-Fi mesh networking gear from Tropos Networks that will be mounted on light poles throughout the city. It also will use Motorola’s MOTOwi4line of wireless networking products, including its Canopy high-speed backhaul and Wi-Fi mesh equipment. DragonWave, a broadband wireless backhaul vendor, also recently agreed to work with EarthLink for wireless backhaul.

Meanwhile, EarthLink and Time-Warner Cable, last month announced an agreement to provide EarthLink broadband online service on Time Warner Cable systems. It will make available EarthLink broadband online service to the approximately 19 million homes passed by Time Warner Cable’s broadband cable systems.

Municipal Wireless | No Comments »

AOL plans to give away their service to high- speed Internet users in a bid to improve its online advertising business, the company announced today.

AOL had up offered its e-mail accounts only to its 24 million subscription paying customers, says C/Net. But AOL has lost 9 million U.S. subscribers in four years, mainly to broadband rivals.

To keep subscribers and lure advertisers, it has been adding content such as news and music. The additional eyeballs are expected to boost ad revenues, compensating for the loss in subscription revenues.

“We’ll now be able to maintain and deepen our relationship with many more members who are likely to migrate to broadband,” AOL Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller said.

Since 2005 Time Warner has openly pursued a strategy of developing free-access programs on AOL — such as TV series, news and music — to compete with Yahoo! and Google.

Still, the lion’s share of Web video watchers have flocked to YouTube.com (31.2 percent market share) and News Corp.’s MySpace.com (second with 17.61 percent share), in the week ending July 22, according to HitWise. Microsoft upgraded their Spaces blogging service, a MySpace clone, Tuesday. Microsoft’s Live Spaces features blogs, photo albums, and music lists.

AOL Video, launching August 4th, aims to be the one-stop shop for online videos and will let users search for videos across the Web, upload their own, or buy or watch for free thousands of TV shows from any one of 45 video-on-demand channels on nearly any device.

Om Malik calls Time Warner The Frankenstein of Online Video - “Each division doing its own thing, with its own partner”.

Chief Executive Officer Richard Parsons of Time Warner, the world’s largest media company and parent of AOL, and AOL President Jeff Bewkes, who hatched the plan, are betting customers will keep on using AOL e-mail and visit the AOL.com. AOL has been a drag on Time Warner’s earnings for five years.

“It’s a risky gamble,” said Laura Martin, an analyst at Soleil Securities Group. “AOL is giving up a definite cash flow stream from existing subscribers in hope it will replace the cash flow with advertising revenue,” Martin said.

Giving away AOL would reduce revenue by about $2 billion, but it increases eyeballs and ad revenue, says the Washington Post. AOL saw advertising revenue rise 26 percent to $392 million in the first quarter of 2006.

AOL will continue to offer its dial-up access subscription service, but will no longer aggressively market it. Members may continue to subscribe to AOL?s unlimited premium dial-up plan with a monthly price of $25.90 (including such additional features as 50 gigabytes of storage and unlimited premium customer care) or choose from two lower-cost access plans.

Cable operators Comcast, Time Warner, Cox Communications and Advance/Newhouse announced a $200 million joint venture with Sprint, in November. The wireless strategy will tie cellphone users into cable properties.

Free services in a bundle seems to be a trend. Related DailyWireless articles include; UK: Free For All, BSkyB: Free Broadband, Murdoch to Offer Free Broadband?, AT&T + MetroFi, WiFi Ad Nets and The New State Television.

Applications, Corporate News | No Comments »

Boston will tap a nonprofit corporation to provide their city-wide WiFi Cloud, reports The Boston Globe. Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino unveiled the plan (pdf), hatched by the Mayor’s Task Force on Wireless in Boston. Boston is proposing a wholesale network, built by the city and sold to retailers who will deliver a variety of services.

“We believe the non-profit route may be the best way to bring low-cost service to every neighborhood while providing a platform for innovation unlike any in the nation,”Mayor Menino said. “By keeping the network open, we believe we can create a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, which will spur economic growth and job creation.”

Wi-Fi service in Boston is expected be offered at $15 per month, but the non-profit entity running the network will not sell retail access — it wholesales bandwidth to other companies. Competing companies are expected to offer end users a variety of high speed or free (ad-supported) wireless access. The network will span 49 square miles and serve some 590,000 residents,

The plan envisions raising $16 million to $20 million from local businesses and foundations. It is a departure from the business models used by other cities, including Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland, which turned over responsibility for their wireless data networks to outside companies such as Earthlink, Google and MetroFi.

The cover letter from the Task Force (pdf), says:

The Task Force has identified a new and highly disruptive business model that addresses a key bottleneck in the value chain for the delivery of broadband. Therefore, we recommend that the City facilitate the deployment of a carrier-neutral, wholesale network that is open to all broadband providers, entrepreneurs, and researchers alike. This network will be ubiquitous, with customizable bit plans that facilitate the development of innovative applications.

According to the Boston Globe:

By empowering an independent organization to own and operate the city’s WiFi, or wireless fidelity, network, Boston is hoping to keep control of the technology deployment and use it to spur innovation, improve city services, and extend wireless Internet access into low-income neighborhoods across the so-called digital divide.

It was crafted by the mayor’s Wireless Task Force and cochaired by Joyce Plotkin , president of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council; Rick Burnes , cofounder of the venture capital firm Charles River Ventures; and retired Harvard Business School professor James Cash.

The mayor created the task force in February to enable Boston to catch up to the dozens of other US cities working to spread wireless Internet access.

Michael Oh, of newburyopen.net,co-founder of BostonWAG, was a member of the task force. The task force expects Boston will take up to two years to blanket the city with radio transmitters, or routers, and wireless Internet access points.

A Verizon spokesman made it clear last winter that the company would view any new entrant into the high-speed Internet broadband market as competition.

According to the Task Force Report:

The proposed non-profit model seeks to drastically increase competition in this segment by operating a wholesale network that provides retail ISPs with a connection between Internet “backhaul” operators and customers at very low cost. The non-profit would enable entrepreneurs, researchers, and companies large and small to offer uniquely specialized and highly localized Internet services to end users. With this new competition, prices would decline and variety increase.

“We’ve identified a highly disruptive business model,” said Rick Burnes. “By harnessing new technologies and implementing a unique network model, we can eliminate much of the cost of delivering broadband, thus providing an inexpensive platform for entrepreneurs while also bringing cheaper service to underserved populations.”

While Internet broadband is currently available to nearly 90% of Boston residents, according to the report, only 40% of Boston households subscribe, with 30% still using dial-up, and the remaining 30% doing without home Internet.

“What we’re trying to do is bring Internet access to as many people across the City as possible,” said Menino. “We believe this model could be the best way to bridge the so-called ‘Digital Divide.’ The student in Mattapan should have the same access to the knowledge available from the Web as the student living on Beacon Hill.”

Meanwhile, Berkeley voted 5:1 to find a municipal partner for fiber, reports The Register. “A successful economic model for running municipal Wi-Fi networks has yet to emerge,” says the city’s director of IT, Chris Mead.

The city also noted that while subscription models for Wi-Fi have been a flop, advertising-based revenue “cannot be taken for granted”, either. “It may be that municipal Wi-Fi is a passing fad that will be left behind by economic reality and new technology,” advised Mead.

The idea is simple, says Bob Cringely — run Fiber To The Home (FTTH) and run it as a cooperative. The cost per fiber drop, is estimated at $1,000-$1,500 if 40 percent of homes participate. Using the higher $1,500 figure, the cost to finance the system over 10 years at today’s prime rate would be $17.42 per month.

Municipal Wireless | No Comments »

Advanced Micro Device announced nationwide availability of the Telmex Internet Box Personal Internet Communicator (PIC) for citizens across Mexico.

Available from AMD since October 2004, The Telmex Internet Box provides Internet hardware, software, Internet service and support. It is available for purchase in Telmex shops all over Mexico and contains the PIC, a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The device comes preloaded with word processing, spreadsheet, presentation viewer, e-mail, media player (photos, music and video), and instant messaging software.

AMD’s 50×15 Initiative includes several PC devices targeted to provide affordable connectivity options around the globe. The PIC is being used by schools, universities, small businesses and consumers worldwide including the Caribbean, India, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and Russia.

EE Times lists low cost personal computers designed for underserved regions in the world. We updated their list with some of the newer proposals from Intel, Microsoft, Inveneo and One Laptop Per Child.

• Personal Internet Communicator (PIC), by Advanced Micro Devices, is a Standalone PC sold to service providers in Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia.Specs:
  • GeodeGX 500@1-W processor
  • 128 Mbytes of DRAM
  • 10-Gbyte, 3.5-inch hard disk
  • 56k v.92 fax/modem
  • AC’97 Audio
  • Four USB 1.1 ports
  • One VGA port
  • Streamlined version of Windows CE, word processing, spreadsheet, e-mail and browser apps and Acrobat, Flash and image viewers
  • Cost: $185 without monitor
  • Availability: since October 2004
• Terra PC By Via TechnologiesThree branded PCs and thin clients defined initially for China and India. All use existing Via silicon and support Ethernet and/or 802.11 wireless ad hoc mesh networkingSpecs:
  • Full-fledged PC based on GHz Celeron-class Via processor with MPEG-2 decoding and graphics
  • Cost: $250 without monitor
  • Media Station: Thin client with multimedia capabilities
  • Availability: June 2005
  • 
• $100 MIT One Laptop Per Child led by Nicholas Negroponte. Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, and Thailand have each tendered commitments to purchase 1 million Linux laptops through the U.S.-based program.Specs:
  • AMD CPU
  • 7.5-inch diagonal screen with pull string for power
  • flash-memory disk
  • multiple USB ports
  • 802.11 wireless ad hoc mesh networking and GPRS
  • Cost: $130
  • Availability: Late this year
• Microsoft’s FlexGo enables a pay-as-you-go model using prepaid cards or a subscription model with monthly payments.Specs:
  • Standard Windows machine
  • System components within the hardware allow for tracking computer use time, based on minutes of use or a specific end-date.
  • Anti-tampering Measures: Include hardware security technologies that make it inconvenient or costly for an individual to tamper with the components
  • Interfaces to the Provisioning Server System. New interfaces have been created to connect the operating system to the Microsoft FlexGo provisioning server system.
  • Cost: Subscription computing fees vary
  • Availability: Unclear

  

• Intel’s Affordable PC: A small, energy efficient system with “full-featured” PC technologies. It will use a low-power Intel processor running either the Linux operating system or Microsoft’s XP Starter Edition, a stripped down version of the Microsoft OS for poorer countries. Intel also plans to extend teacher training to 400,000 teachers in Mexico through the Intel Teach to the Future program by 2010.Specs:
  • Windows XP Starter Edition or Linux
  • Hard drive as well as built-in graphics, audio, and networking capabilities.
  • Four USB 2.0 ports, two PS/2 ports, and a parallel port.
  • Cost: around $200
  • Availability: Unclear
• HP 441 Custom Linux system, part of HP’s E-inclusion program, it’s designed for education and supports four simultaneous users.Specs:
  • Celeron or Pentium CPU
  • 512 Mbytes to 1 Gbyte of RAM
  • 40-Gbyte Sata drive
  • 48x CD-ROM drive
  • Nvidia Quadro NVS 100 graphics
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • Supports four keyboards, mice and 15-inch CRT monitors
  • Includes custom version of Mandrake Linux for four users, 70 open-source educational apps, HP educational software
  • Cost: ~$1,600
  • Availability: since 2004 in South Africa

• Inveneo, a non-profit social enterprise, recently announced the availability of its new Inveneo Communications System, designed to provide computing, Internet Access and VoIP telephony for places with little or no access to electricity or affordable communications.Recently, AMD, Wyse, and NGOs Inveneo and ActionAid united to bring solar-powered thin client computing capability and Internet access into several villages in Uganda. These highly reliable, low energy consumption devices are maintained by ActionAid trained local community members.Specs:
  • Linux-based Wyse S50 computer
  • 64 flash / 128MB RAM
  • Works on 12-V dc power source, consuming less than 25 Watts. Can be run on a bicycle-powered generator.
  • In standby mode, where only the phone and WiFi link are active, the system uses only 5 Watts of power.
  • Outdoor WiFi access points are encased in all-weather coverings for protection against water and dust.
  • No fan or moving parts.
• Refurbished donated systems From Digital-Links International (London) and others.Specs:
  • Pentuim-2 and -3 processors, 233 MHz to 1 GHz
  • 64 to 128 Mbytes of DRAM
  • 4- to 6-Gbyte hard drive
  • Some include CD-ROM drive
  • Cost: $75 with monitor and shipping
  • Available: now
• Jhai PC; Low-power PC delivering VoIP and data service originally developed by non-profits for villages in Laos.Specs:
  • ZF Micro 128-MHz 486-class CPU, upgraded to 300-MHz Geode CPU
  • 64 Mbytes of RAM
  • Works on 12-V dc power source, consuming 20 W average. Can be run on a bicycle-powered generator.
  • 802.11b, 96-Mbyte flash-memory storage on PCMCIA cards
  • Lao version of Debian Linux; Lao versions of KDE office apps and VoIP program
  • 12-inch XVGA LCD
  • Dot-matrix printer
  • Includes optional moisture-sealed 802.11b radio station and parabolic high-gain antenna
  • Separate gateway links VoIP 802.11b net into phone system
  • Cost: $2,000 for prototypes designed with volunteered labor and parts; production systems expected to be much cheaper; prototypes cost $2,000 but could reduce to a fraction of that with subsequent generations and volume sales.
  • Availability: Systems being tested in Arizona, China and perhaps India this quarter. Final open-source spec expected by yearend.

In other news, The AT&T Foundation today announced a $1 million grant to provide new technology resources for people with all types of disabilities.

The grant to the Community Technology Centers’ Network (CTCNet) is part of a three-year AccessAll initiative by AT&T to provide technology access to underserved communities. It will be used to fund training for community technology center staff on universal design and assistive technology that can be used to accommodate multiple learning styles and abilities.

CTCNet will make the AT&T funds available to regional centers through a competitive application process.

Grass Roots Wireless, Solar | 1 Comment »

Katie Fehrenbacher at GigOm says:

The FCC just released a list of 168 qualified bidders for the AWS spectrum auction coming up on August 9th, and also announced that the process will not involve the controversial blind bidding. We’ve been following the companies interested in bidding pretty closely, and there were a few surprises in the FCC filings, including a group tied to Rupert Murdoch, DirecTV and Echostar, which put down almost a billion dollars that it can use to bid on spectrum.

Wireless DBS, the consortium tied to Echostar, DirecTV, News Corp, News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Echostar’s Charles Ergen, qualified to bid and paid one of the largest upfront payments out of the list of interested bidders, of $972.55 million. The group’s auction plans might involve WiMAX, and prove to be crucial to these companies future as triple play becomes common place. (The upfront payment is refundable if the company doesn’t win the specturm it desires, but could be an indicator of how much the companies are willing to spend.)

The cable consortium SpectrumCo, tied to cable companies Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable and Comcast CEO and Chairman Brian Roberts, among others, qualified to bid and put down another large upfront payment of $637.71 million. Other cable groups like the Washington Post’s Cable One qualified and paid an upfront payment of $3.5 million. The Dolan Family, tied to Charles Dolan, Cablevision’s Chairman, qualified and paid an upfront fee of $149.98 million.

The FCC’s pdf list is here. T-Mobile paid $583.52 million, Cingular paid $500 million, and a Verizon affiliated company paid $383.34 million in upfront fees.

But why would Echostar/DirecTV pour almost a $1 billion into AWS when all the talk is over a Clearwire/DirecTV deal for Mobile WiMAX? Juniper predicts an initial adoption of 1.7m Mobile WiMAX subs by 2007, reaching 21.3m subscribers by 2012.

Maybe it’s all about phones.

Murdoch’s MySpace is Mobilizing with Helio (a virtual cell phone operator). The SK/Earthlink partnership (now called Helio) could be moving from being a “virtual” operator to “real” status — with the help of SK and Earthlink. Murdoch also seems destined to get into MobileTV. It’s just a matter of time.

The AWS auction is for 1,122 licenses in the 1710-1755 MHz and 2110-2155 MHz bands. It’s reportedly the largest-ever sale of wireless licenses and is expected to generate between $8 billion and $15 billion for the U.S. Treasury. The auction is scheduled to start Aug. 9.

DailyWireless has more on AWS Auction: Does it Suck?, AWS Auction Delayed, The AWS & 700MHz Dance and 3G Band Scam?

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