Philadelphia CTO Dianah Neff faced public City Council questions yesterday over the nuts and bolts of their innovative Wireless Philadelphia plan and answered critics who say the wireless-Internet plan is unnecessary, reports Philly.com

The city’s chief information officer, Dianah Neff, told the City Council that the effort was crucial to bridging the city’s digital divide - and assured skeptics that it would not leave taxpayers with the bill. Neff estimated that the effort would cost $15 million to $20 million. “This program is vital,” Neff said, noting that the effort had earned worldwide notice since Street unveiled it in August 2004. “It is a very powerful initiative that will impact businesses big and small in the city of Philadelphia.”

Michael Balhoff, a Maryland-based financial analyst who specializes in telecommunications, questioned whether the numbers added up.

Tom Christie, chief operating officer of the Bella Vista-based Closed Networks, said his firm already provided wireless Internet service to 50 square miles of Philadelphia for $20 a month, the rate Wireless Philadelphia hopes to charge.

“Why, we ask, should Philadelphia build a wireless network when one already exists?” he said.

Neff aimed at critics who she said had suggested that the initiative would be a waste of money in a market where some deals for DSL Internet access cost less than $15 a month.

“Look under the covers to find out what these deals are about,” she said, noting that many were introductory offers, introduced since the wireless scheme was rolled out, that require lengthy commitments or the purchase of other services.

Neff faces powerful skeptics. Several Council members said they had received critical briefings on the effort from officials at Comcast, which could face competition from the plan.

Teams led by Hewlett-Packard and EarthLink are the finalists for the contract to build the network. A decision is due soon.

Wireless Philadelphia expects to attract 78,000 residential customers in its first year of operation. Its business plan says it will break even on an initial $10 million investment, salt away $4 million for network upgrades and spin off $5 million in cash to support digital divide programs by its fifth year of operations - all of it at no cost to city taxpayers.

Philadelphia became the nation’s first big city to buy the muni wireless dream back in August 2004, explains the Mercury News. It will cover all of the city’s 135 square miles with WiFi and sell service to its 1.5 million residents at bargain prices. AirBand currently supplies broadband data and Voice-over-IP to companies in the greater Philadelphia area using Alvarion BreezeMAX gear.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, last month, asked bidders to line up to suggest how to build a muni wireless network. San Jose’s information technology department is expected to make recommendations to the city council in November.

WiMax: Go For It! Look. Who cares what they’re doing in some cow town or metropolis. Your own community’s needs come first. Think for yourself. Consider WiMax. If the IEEE ratifies 802.16e this September, then some “pre-certified” Mobile WiMax gear will likely be available early next year. Don’t you think? What’s wrong with specifying an ALL WiMax city-cloud, right now. Start building summer, 2006. Sure, some of the software won’t be there, but specify hardware that can be upgraded to 802.16-2005. Test 2-3 areas for a year, then build it out in 2007-2008. Let coffee shops (or homes) put up their own hotspots. Inexpensive WiFi hotspots with built-in (or plugged in) WiMax backhaul are coming. D-Link has a hotspot with cell backbone while Flarion & Netgear have a mobile hotspot. Today. With cheap $20/mo Mobile WiMax riding on the “city cloud”, mounting a hotspot anywhere should be a snap. The infrastructure would be faster, cheaper and less risky. WiMax was designed for low-cost, city-wide access. Use it. Hundreds (or thousands) of WiFi nodes would be costly to build and maintain. It just seems too expensive. City clouds costing $75,000 a square mile? Oh, please. It should be $10,000-$25,000. If it costs too much now, just wait a year. Sprint/Nextel is. WiFi “clouds” must be price competive. By December, 2005, the three cellular providers will offer 300-700 Kbps (nation-wide) for $60 per month. Mobile WiMax may be available from Clearwire in 2006, Sprint may offer Mobile WiMax in 2007, and Paul Allen could provide long range WiMax using his 700 Mhz frequecies in 2008. Will “anchor tenants” bail? EV-DO/3G will be unbiquitous nationally this year. Licensed Mobile WiMax at 2.5 GHz and 700 Mhz WILL be compelling at $30-$40/month. Plan on it. An “open access” 5.8 GHz WiMax “cloud” might be a better alternative. It enables competition. Everyone benefits. Netgear’s adaptive antenna access point costs $99. Netgear and Flarion teamed on a “mobilized” access point, using Flarion for the backhaul. Solectek outputs 400 mW at 5.8GHz for a range up to 5 miles. Why shouldn’t WiMax access points at 5.8GHz go a mile for $1,000-$5,000 and deliver service to a $100 client/dongle? Is that asking too much? Sequans and Fujitsu can power Micro Max basestations while Intel chips are available for clients. Airspan has a line as does Alvarion. Motorola’s Wi4 line includes a light infrastructure solution as well as a carrier class platform. Doubling the range cuts costs 75%. Mobile WiMax doubles range (upstream) by transmiting all the power in a fraction of the channel bandwidth. Downstream range is doubled by allocating more power to the carriers assigned to distant users. The WiMax Forum says that Non-LOS service at 3.5Ghz, using these new Mobile Wimax techniques, will improve range from 1-2 km to 4-9 km (pdf) - a huge improvement. Subchannelization and Scalable OFDMA is the key to long range and low cost. You won’t get it with WiFi. It might not be mobile, but 5.8 GHz WiMax would be cheaper and faster than WiFi. Licensed 4.9 GHz public service could ride shotgun on the fiber/mesh backbone. So could highway-oriented DRCS at 5.9 GHz. Will (proprietary) mesh vendors be able to swap out their gear? It might be tricky. WiMax. It’s a competitive strategy. If an ISP can offer a $200, self-install box, delivering both broadband and voice at $40-$50 a month, then it’s a real business. Real competition. If the operating company could sell 512kbps for $10-$15/month (wholesale), and each “node” averaged 100 subs, that’s more than $1K/mo revenue on each $5K node for the infrastructure operator. It’s a good thing for consumers as well as Qwest and Comcast. And the public service users are “free”. WiMax is no slam dunk. It is largely unproven and untested. But engineers have done a commendable job, wringing out every last ounce of performance from this platform. Let’s see what she’ll do. - Sam

Related DailyWireless stories include; Free Cloud Pays NYC, Airband in Philly, Portland Cloud Workshop, Philly Picks TWO Winners, City Clouds Save Money, One Percent for Art, Corpus Christi Cloud, San Francisco’s Location-Based Ads, Toyko WiMax Cloud Expands, Intel: Cloud Apps R Us, Oregon’s 700 mile Cloud in NY Times, NYC Public WiFi, NYC Cloud Gets Advocate(s), High Noon for City Clouds, Philadelphia Seeks Cloud Providers, Philadelphia’s City Cloud, Philly Fallout, Philly Negotiates a Cloud, Verizon Blocking Philly Cloud?, Clouds for Phat Tuesday, Oregon Fiber for Google, Portland Wireless Cloud Announced, The Battle of Lafayette, NYC’s Next Big Thing, Metcalf’s Law, U.S. Broadband Laggard?, Broadband: A National Scandal, Political Clouds & the Write Spot, Highway Patrol, Regional Roaming Roundup, D.C. Hotspots, Treasure of Rio Rancho, Sprint + Nextel = Cable?, Alvarion Promotes Mobile WiMax, Will 802.20 Challenge WiMax?, WiFi Vrs WiMax, Unlicensed Spectrum: The Sum of All Fears, CapWIN Becomes Self-Aware, City Clouds Sell Out?, Anti-Municipal Broadband Kit, Broadband Manifesto, and DailyWireless City Cloud Report.

Municipal Wireless, Radio Policy News | No Comments »

Cyber Journalist points out an interesting example of a news map from Via Virtual Earth. They put together a map displaying headlines from MSNBC. You can move to different sections of the globe and zoom in with a slider. Keyword searching results in clickable red dots positioned at the location of the story.

Virtual Earth is a new map and search system by Microsoft.

Google Maps was the real breakthrough. Their open API allowed developers to roll their own interfaces, embedding Google Maps in their own web pages with JavaScript. Soon map widgets were being profiled in Make Magazine, O’Reilly, Dasnet.org, Map Room, GeoBloggers, Google Maps Mania and many others.

Google Earth (the downloadable application), can swoop in from space and circle as you please. Navigational tools let you zip around any locale, moving in and out, panning around, and circling.

Even though Google Earth’s world is mainly based on flat satellite photos, it does some trickery with perspective that results in a surprisingly three-dimensional look, such as in this view of Wrigley Park (above). WiGLE.net is a submission-based catalog of wireless networks. Portland’s WiFi hotspots use Google Maps.

Scipionus.com (above), is a “wiki” page/Google Map of the Gulf Coast. All of the information on the map has been provided by ordinary citizens, most of whom presumably have come to the site in search of information on the flood themselves. Greg Stoll explains how to make your own map.

Individuals can Geotag Photos to enable Geo Photoblogging for integrating Google Maps with Flickr photos.

The Washington Post has Katrina Panoramas.

Kathryn Cramer explains how to make GoogleMaps using GoogleEarth. It’s the best way to check if a New Orleans address is under water.

O’Reily has collected a flood of new map hacks. Here’s O’Reilly’s Collection of Map Hacking Goodies. You can create a real-time GPS tracker using Google Maps API. Don’t worry about having a GPS device, you can emulate a garmin using GPSGate.

Yahoo co-founder David Filo took a personal interest in helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina; he attended Tulane University in New Orleans. Filo wrote a metasearch engine to index all the disparate related Web sites. Thus was born Yahoo’s Katrina People Finder site. The site has registered about 650,000 searches since it went online Sept. 4, said Jeremy Johnston, Technical Yahoo. Yahoo partnered with SBC to set up a computer lab at the Houston Astrodome to help people affected by the disaster connect with others, he said.

Yahoo is not the only company helping with the hurricane relief efforts. Google has launched a similar, Katrina People Search, site, and Lycos has created one as well.

Applications | No Comments »

CyberTAN Technology will produce devices supporting IEEE 802.16e technology in early 2006, says Digitimes.

CyberTAN may source the WiMAX chips either from Intel or Canada-based Wavesat to develop its WiMAX solutions, but the company has not yet made a decision. CyberTAN, together with the Computer and Communication Research Laboratories (CCL) of Taiwan’s ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) and the IEEE s 802.16e task group, is hosting a meeting in Taipei this week with an aim to hammer out the initial draft of the 802.16e standard.

The drafts of the standard are expected to come out on September 13, and will then be forwarded to an IEEE routing meeting to be held on September 27 for further discussion. A final ratification is expected to come by year-end 2005, according to Ken Stanwood, vice chairman of the IEEE 802.16 committee.

Although the first batch of the 802.16e-compatible products are expected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2006, the 802.16e technology may not become mature until the latter half of 2006 or early 2007, Hwang asserted.

IEEE 802.16 is meeting in Taipei, Taiwan, September 12 to 15, 2005. This interim session #39 is expected to attract more than 100 companies and organizations worldwide, totaling almost 300 participants.

ITRI and CyberTAN will co-host the 2005 Taipei Broadband Wireless Access Technology Summit in the morning of September 12 as a prelude to the IEEE 802.16 working Group meeting. This Summit presents talks by IEEE802.16 vice chair, Ken Stanwood, WiMAX Forum Certification working group chair, Edward Agis, and other working group chairs.

Though European and American companies constitute a big part of the IEEE802.16 working group membership, Asian countries such as Taiwan,, Japan, Korea and China have recently shown enthusiasm to participate in the standard meetings actively.

The final version of the IEEE 802.16e standard may be ratified by the end of this month, reports Unstrung.

It has been completed and sent out for, hopefully, a final recirculation about one hour ago, wrote Brian G. Kiernan, chair of the 802.16e Task Group, in an email note to Unstrung yesterday. If that recirc goes clean, we are done. We ll know in two weeks.

In contrast to fixed WiMax products, which are based on the IEEE’s 802.16-2004 standard and are expected for commercial launch in the first half of next year, mobile WiMax is focused on portable and mobile broadband services. Certification testing and product availability is slated for the second half of 2006 at the earliest. Industry speculation suggests the standard will be officially named 802.16-2005.

IEEE 802.16 Chairman, Roger Marks (Email Archives), says:

The IEEE-SA Balloting Center has opened up recircs on both P802.16e/D11 and P802.16-2004/Cor1/D5. Thanks to all the editorial team for getting this done. Especially Jon Labs, Itzik Kitroser (working from Israel), Brian Kiernan, Ron Murias, Carl Eklund, Jose Puthenkulam, Phil Barber, etc. The late-night skeleton crew of Brian, Ron, and Jose stuck around until we saw the ballots opened.

Chips, WiMAX News | No Comments »

Pronto Networks, today announced it is donating its wireless management software to enable broadband wireless connectivity in downtown New Orleans, the airport, as well as Biloxi and Baton Rouge, in support of Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts.

Pronto is working with partners Intel, MCI’s SkyTel and Tropos Networks to enable free Wi-Fi service to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers, local government employees and citizens at these locations.

The broadband wireless network will provide thousands of hurricane survivors the ability to communicate with relatives, contact social services and access other information critical to receiving emergency fund distributions and for relocation. It will also enable FEMA and city employees to exchange information critical to mobilizing resources and people in need of help.

SkyTel, a subsidiary of MCI, will provide the on-site installation, technical assistance and 24×7 network monitoring and Intel is contributing Tropos mesh routers for coverage in these areas.

Pronto is providing the back-office operational support, including customer portal customization, quality of service controls, and remote network management, via its Managed Services operation based in San Jose, CA. Pronto’s Managed Services runs on its OSS platform for converged services.

The network in these hard-hit areas is expected to be fully operational later this week.

Related DailyWireless articles include; Sputnik + Linksys: Into the Zone, FEMA = Death, 700MHz: A Sweet Deal?, Linksys WiFi/Cellular Access Point, WiFi Phone Does G, DirectWay Lowers Sat Cost, Ham Radio, Live From New Orleans, Katrina Telecomunications Report, Georgia COWs, Mobile COWs & COLTs, Hurricane Frances Lineworkers, Earthquake First Responders, Hurricane Help, Public Service Bands, Corpus Christi Cloud, More Solar WiFi, USGS Aero Wireless, Wireless Recon Airplanes, More 700 Mhz Testimony, ISP in a Trailer, Getto Antenna, WiMax Vrs WiFi, Strix Satellite Mesh, D-Link Hotspot with Cell Backbone, Flarion & Netgear = Mobile Hotspot, Camphones For Journalists, GPS Blogging Phones, Map Space, Meetro Location Net and More Google Map Hacks.

Grass Roots Wireless, Public Service, Wi-Fi Deployments | No Comments »

James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.

HSDPA provides the Grand Slam in wireless mobility, says 3G Newsroom:

Led by Cingular Wireless in the U.S., operators worldwide are about to start deploying High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), one of the most powerful cellular-data technologies ever developed. 3G Americas published a white paper (pdf), prepared by independent wireless consultant Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research, which examines the performance of the GSM family of data technologies — GPRS, EDGE and UMTS/HSDPA — how they work, and their position relative to some competing technologies.

HSDPA, an enhancement to UMTS for packet data, delivers average data throughput rates to the subscriber of 550-1100 Kbps and peak theoretical rates of 14 Mbps. The paper also reconfirms that HSDPA with its enhanced features could increase spectral efficiency by a factor of 2.5 — 3.5x when operators complete an upgrade of their UMTS networks.

Some of the key observations and conclusions of the paper include:

• UMTS/HSDPA represents tremendous radio innovation and capability, allowing it to support a wide variety of applications, including voice and data on the same devices.

• Various enhancements are planned for HSDPA that will extend UMTS/HSDPA capability even further, beginning with an enhanced uplink (HSUPA), advanced receivers and then intelligent antennas/MIMO.

• OFDM is a good candidate technology for next generation systems employing wide radio channels. However, it does not offer compelling advantages over UMTS in radio channels of 10 MHz or less. Initial versions of IEEE 802.16e are likely to have spectral efficiency similar to HSDPA.

• Ongoing UMTS evolution includes significant enhancements with each new specification release, including higher throughput rates, enhanced multimedia support, and integration with wireless local area network WLAN) technology.

“The GPRS to HSDPA evolution provides one of the most robust technology portfolios and an optimum framework for realizing the inevitable mass market potential for mobile wireless data,” confirmed the paper’s author Peter Rysavy.

Of course the EV-DO camp, the WiMax camp, and the Qualcomm/Flarion camp may beg to differ.

Related DailyWireless articles include; Cingular’s 3G Network, Sprint + Lucent for EV-DO, Jacobs: Cellular Beats WiMax, Verizon Tests Rev A, Finland Goes Flarion, Qualcomm Buys Flarion, T-Mobile’s HSDPA Move, HSPDA in China, Verizon Expands EV-DO, Cuts Price, Sprint Rolls Out EV-DO, Verizon EV-DO in Seattle, Portland & NYC, HSPDA Tests, 3G: HSPDA or Not?, CDMA vs OFDM, Mobile WiMax: It’s Alive!, 16e: Backward Compatibility - NOT, Flarion Testing WiFi Handoff, Banning Broadband Everywhere, City Clouds Save Money, Mobile WiMax - Now?, Laptop with EDGE, HSPDA & WiMax Living Together?, WiMax Over Hyped?, HSPDA Demos, Sprint Commits to EV-DO, Verizon Expands EV-DO, Cuts Price, 3G: HSDPA or Not?, and Cellular At The Races.

Cellular News, EV-DO/HSDPA | 1 Comment »

Google has introduced its long awaited blog search service, says Search Engine Watch, becoming the first major search engine to offer full-blown blog and feed search capabilities. It’s expected to put pressure on blog search specialists like Technorati.

It’s been nearly two and a half years since Google purchased Pyra Labs, the company that built the hugely popular Blogger publishing service, and Google has been promising blog search ever since then.

While Google web search has allowed you to limit results to popular blog file types such as RSS and XML in web search results for some time, and its news search includes some blogs as sources, Google hasn’t had a specialized tool to surface purely blog postings. In fact, while all of the major search engines have been dabbling with blog and feed search, none has done much with blog search until now.

Google’s new service (in beta, naturally) is available both at google.com/blogsearch and search.blogger.com. Google blog search scans content posted to blogs and feeds in virtually real-time, according to Jason Goldman, Google product manager for blog search.

“We look for sites that update pinging services, and then we crawl in real-time so that we can serve up search results that are as fresh as we can,” said Goldman.

Google defines blogs as sites that use RSS and other structured feeds and update content on a regular basis.

“It’s hard to say what Google’s major focus should be going forward, said Vint Cerf, newly installed chief Internet evangelist at Google.

He told CNET News.com earlier this summer, he sees transmission of “spacely” information–that is, the capability to locate, say, the nearest hospital or ATM from mobile devices–as a critically important venture.

“I think what’s very clear, based on the excitement associated with Google Earth, is the exploitation of geographically indexed information is clearly ripe for more development,” he said. He also plans to ask Google engineers whether they’ve investigated the possibility of a voice-enabled search, which he says could be useful “in places in the world where people aren’t literate but can speak.”

Hey, Vint, how about one of those wireless cloud thingies.

Applications | No Comments »

Scientific-Atlanta and Tropos are getting together to expand S/A’s product line for cable operators. Scientific-Atlanta will include Tropos products in its portfolio.

Under the terms of the agreement the companies will collaborate on both strand-mounting, coaxial powering options and fiber converters for the Tropos 5210 MetroMesh routers.

These cable-optimized products will be sold through Scientific-Atlanta, enabling cable operators to integrate Tropos’ MetroMesh functionality into HFC systems, thereby providing customers with broadband mobility.

Tropos’ MetroMesh architecture with its patented Predictive Wireless Routing Protocol (PWRP) allows network operators to quickly and easily deliver city-wide fixed and mobile multi-megabit connectivity for IP- based voice, video and data applications. It’s generally applied when no convenient backhaul is available.

Scientific Atlanta said they will work with Tropos Networks to enhance Tropos MetroMesh routers for easy integration into existing cable HFC networks. The companies will develop both strand-mounting and coaxial powering options for the Tropos 5210 outdoor MetroMesh routers.

To enable cable operators to leverage the inherent data transmission advantage of the HFC network, Scientific Atlanta is developing both hardened optical and coaxial backhaul solutions. All of these products are planned for general availability in the fourth quarter of this calendar year.

Related DailyWireless articles include; Time/Warner Wireless?, Cable Going Mobile?, Wireless Cable, Cable: VoIP Winner?, Cable vs Digital Cities: Championship Fight, Legislators: Don’t Mess With SBC, Texas Cable on Muni Wireless, U.S. Telcos Test WiMax, WiFi/Cellular Roaming Overview, Telco TV Architecture Installing FiOS, SBC Picks IP-TV Settops and GigE to the Home - Wireless Next?.

Municipal Wireless, Wi-Fi News | No Comments »

Airgo Networks, developer of innovative Multiple Input, Multiple Output WiFi chips, announced this week a new generation of MIMO chips with faster speeds, longer range and dual bands (2.4 GHz & 5 GHz)

Airgo’s Gen3 chips are said to support for data rates up to 240Mbps - “almost three times the speed of other premium wireless technologies on the market today”. The new chips employ 40 megahertz (MHz) wide channels rather than the 20 MHz used in current Airgo products.

Airgo’s new chipset is designed to shuttle large files and media-rich content like video, IPTV, music, photos and games, across a wireless network. It remains 100% compatible with 802.11b, 11g and 11a Wi-Fi, (without the speed enhancement, of course).

Airgo says it eliminates the need for wired connections, offering faster speeds than wired 10/100 Ethernet used in routers, laptops, PCs, set-top boxes, consoles and TVs. Airgo says real-world tests show actual TCP/IP throughput of over 120Mbps with uncompressed traffic, surpassing the performance of wired 100BaseT Ethernet. For enterprises, Airgo’s third generation technology is said to make the wire-free office a reality.

Airgo’s Gen3 chipset features a single chip with two complete radios fully integrated to achieve further aggressive board-level integration, which has resulted in a 15% reduction in the overall Bill of Material (BOM) cost and a 20% reduction in power consumption.

Airgo’s first generation MIMO technology is currently shipping in a wide range of products from companies including Belkin, Buffalo, Linksys, Netgear, Planex, Samsung, Smartvue and SOHOware. Their second generation MIMO chips provides a lower cost solution.

Belkin’s groundbreaking 3 antenna MIMO router has been recently supplimented with a 2 antenna MIMO router while Linksys introduced their WRT54GX2, a 2 antenna version of their 3 antenna WRT54GX, in the $100 range. Both products are based on the cheaper Airgo chipset.

Tom’s Networking has additional details on the new MIMO chips, which are currently sampling to select partners, with retail product availability expected by late Q4, 2005.

Airgo is not the only MIMO player (although they say they’re the only “True MIMO”). Video54 has a successful “MIMO-like” smart antenna systems for consumer applications. Its BeamFlex smart MIMO antenna is used by Netgear in their RangeMax WPN824 Wireless Router. Multiple internal antennas “beam” a signal to the end user. This approach, says Video54, enhances range at lower cost since multiple RF radio chains are not required. Signal processing combines signals from the multiple antennas.

Video54 will announce next week that it is changing its name to Ruckus Wireless and that it has grabbed $9 million in VC funding.

Both sides of the MIMO debate are battling for the next generation of WiFi - 802.11n - which is expected to utilize MIMO and feature at least 100 Mbps speeds.

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly until recently:

The TGn Sync group, backed by Intel among others, and the wWise group, supported by Texas Instruments and friends, were stuck in an impasse for months. In February, the TGn Sync group won an initial confirmation vote. But the group could never get the 75 percent approval needed in a second confirmation vote that would push the proposal forward as the 802.11n draft.

This July, the two opposing groups agreed to merge their efforts to work under a November deadline to complete a converged proposal for 802.11n.

But there’s trouble in paradise:

Now Intel has convinced Broadcom, Atheros and Marvell to join forces outside of the IEEE to develop an interoperable physical and media access control (MAC) layer scheduled to be presented for IEEE acceptance by November.

By working independently of the IEEE’s 802.11n next-generation task group, Intel has angered task group members who accuse the Intel-led alliance of everything from co-opting the IEEE process to outright antitrust violations that could draw Federal Trade Commission (FTC) scrutiny. Suspicions have been amplified by the PC-centric nature of the alliance as well as the secretive approach the group has taken, including the signing of nondisclosure agreements. The omission of Airgo Networks from the alliance has also fueled accusations that the alliance is trying to offset Airgo s competitive advantage.

Related DailyWireless MIMO stories include; MIMO Expanded, Finding MIMO, D-Link’s MIMO, Netgear’s MIMO, Belkin’s MIMO and the Linksys MIMO, MIMO Reviews, TGn Leading for 802.11n, Nortel Demos MIMO Cellular, Ext Antennas for Belkin’s MIMO, Intel Does MIMO, Airgo’s MIMO chips, Motia’s Smart Antenna Chip, Finding MIMO, MIMO Update, Lumera’s Smart Antenna, Intel Connects the Dots, MIMO and Phased Arrays, and More Antennas Get Smart.

Chips, IEEE Standards, Wi-Fi News | No Comments »

Hot spot innovator Sputnik announced today that their easy to use network management software now works with the Linksys WRT54G or WRT54GS.

The Sputnik Agent, a free software download, equips the popular Linksys WRT54G or WRT54GS to work as hotspots in centrally managed networks.

Sputnik’s central management software and “flashed” Linksys access points should make wireless “zones” cheap to buy, fast to install and easy to manage. It could open up a new wave of “free zones”.

Network operators can monitor and manage the Linksys routers remotely using Sputnik Control Center management software. It can view real-time network status, generate usage reports, automatically provision APs, create custom captive portal pages, and choose from a variety of authentication methods for both end-users and devices.

A single Sputnik Control Center license manages from two to ten APs. As you add more APs to your wireless network, you add new AP licenses your Sputnik Control Center server. For $299 you can manage a single AP. Additional licenses cost less, but must be purchased for each AP under management. A pack of 10 AP licenses, for example, costs $1,699. A reasonably equipped server should easily support hundreds of APs and thousands of users, says Sputnik.

[NOTE: This is a correction from an earlier post which had incorrect pricing - Sam]

Sputnik’s management software supports a range of Wi-Fi business models that includes free, branded Wi-Fi, pre-paid cards and credit card or PayPal account billing. Service providers who choose not to install server software can choose SputnikNet, a hosted service with no server hardware or software to install and maintain. VoIP-over-Wi-Fi handsets are also supported.

Sputnik is working with Linksys partners to develop the reseller channel for Sputnik wireless networks with broadband routers preloaded with Sputnik Agent software. The Sputnik Agent (SA) is about 100KB of portable code designed to be incorporated into the firmware of commodity wireless access points. The Sputnik Agent provides all of the manageability hooks that enable automatic configuration, dynamic firewalling, multiple captive portal redirects, policy routing, centralized management, and end-user tracking.

“By including these great Linksys routers in wireless networks managed by Sputnik software we will bring the benefits of cost- effective administration to a broader audience,” said David LaDuke, Sputnik CEO.

Sputnik promises to make building, provisioning and managing a “wireless zone” a no brainer.

Watch the skies. The world just changed.

Grass Roots Wireless, Wi-Fi News | No Comments »

With regular phone and cellular service knocked out in Katrina’s wake — the New Orleans mayor’s office had to cobble together an Internet phone link with the outside world — first responders were simply unable to share essential information.

Federal emergency management officials claim they didn’t know for days about thousands of people camped out, thirsty and hungry, at the New Orleans convention center (although they could have watched television or read the paper).

Rescuers in helicopters couldn’t talk to crews patrolling in boats. National guard commanders in Mississippi had to use runners to relay orders. It was not until the fourth day that firefighters, police and emergency personnel in New Orleans were able to communicate with each other, albeit on only one channel.

The U.S. lacks unified emergency radio system, complain some. New Orleans bought an M/A-Com system while the Louisiana State Police bought a statewide system from Motorola four years later. The two systems are not interoperable. But the expensive, highly secure, hard to find interoperable Safecom radios can’t send photos, data or video.

On Tuesday, Democrats on Capital Hill urged Congress to devote $5 billion a year to upgrading communications equipment for the nation’s first-responders. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said the hurricane exposed a “totally failed communication system.”

The public service bands are available now. Senator John McCain says his SAVE LIVES bill, S. 1268 is essential to providing police, fire and emergency personnel the tools to communicate with one another. They can’t use their allocated 24Mhz at 700 until broadcasters move their collective butts off the property.

Some advocate creating a national 700 Mhz wireless data network — with its own dedicated emergency frequencies. Police, firefighters and all other responders could plug into immediately after a catastrophe. Former FCC commissioner Reed Hundt has lobbied for such a network.

But the much-criticized federal response to Katrina shows that even the latest equipment is no guarantee of smooth communications, said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.

“They had all the radios in the world. They had complete interoperability,” Pike said of federal emergency officials. “That was not a hardware problem. That was a people and procedure problem.”

The Plan Each community on the West Coast of the United States, it seems to me, ought to have emergency broadband wireless. For the people. A $5K, 2-way V-Sat terminal, with a generator and solar panels would provide communications backup. Solar panels, like Sanyo’s 200 watt panels can charge deep cycle batteries though charge controllers. A $20K, WiMax tower provides community broadband. Normally it would use Telco backhaul for the internet connection and provide relay links to nearby towers. They could also feed 3-4 Wireless Kiosks around the community. A dozen $200 access points with built-in wireless backhaul, like those available from Linksys, D-Link and NETGEAR, could provide mobile WiFi with voice, data and video services. They might be carried by police and fire vehicles, motorcycles or bikes and run on batteries. Perhaps a budget of $50,000-$300,000 could provide commodity broadband wireless infrastructure for a small town. Licensed WiMax should get 3-5 miles NLOS. Unlicensed 5.8GHz might get 1-3 miles NLOS or 20 miles in a straight shot. Don’t wait for FEMA. Just do it. Alvarion’s BreezeMax line is shipping WiMax-ready clients while Airspan’s EasyST client includes a WiMax backbone with built-in WiFi for local access. D-Link’s EV-DO access point and NETGEAR’s hotspot with Flarion backhaul are ready to go. 900 Mhz Gear works, too. A $200 box with combined VoIP and WiFi for $40/month is a business. An independent ISP could run it. A $5K Wireless Kiosk might make money, too. Outdoor, advertiser-sponsored Kiosks would also house Tsunami alert info and a netcam. A couple of old 12 volt truck batteries could run it for a week in case of emergency with wireless backhaul to the tower. LinksysInfo.org reviews ALL the latest (free) firmware software for creating automatic, redirect “splash” pages on ordinary, $60 Linksys access points. Turning hopeless victims into smart mobs is the goal of empowerment software like JotSpot and Wiki software. YOUR life, YOUR business and YOUR community are on the line.

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