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February 11, 2008

Wee-Fi: Boingo Expands Mobile Offerings; WPS in More Devices; Train-Fi in Europe Goes Full Tilt

By Glenn Fleishman

Boingo expands mobile service to Sony Ericsson phones, Windows Mobile 6.0, plans iPhone service: Boingo Wireless will expand its $8 per month unlimited worldwide mobile usage plans to smartphones that use Sony Ericsson UIQ 3.0, which include the W960i, P1i, and G900i.

Boingo also released today its mobile service software for Windows Mobile 6.0, which includes devices like the T-Mobile Dash, under the same pricing scheme.

The company mentioned its interest in the iPhone to PC Magazine; Boingo says 6 percent of connection attempts in its airport locations are from iPhones or iPod touches. I confirmed with the company that they aren’t interested in releasing an iPhone before Apple releases the developer toolkit—which is Any Day Now, since Mr. Jobs promised the kit in Feb. 2008. February has 29 days.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has certified 200 products with Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS): I’m still waiting for the operating systems to catch up fully with the fact that the easy-to-use WPS is out in the marketplace so widely. Apple upgraded OS X to handle WPS with its own products, but I haven’t seen enough gear that’s designed to work with it yet, despite that number. I wrote extensively about how WPS works back in Jan. 2007. The alliance has also started with “testing support” for near-field communications (NFS), a rather exciting new method of providing out-of-band security by simply touching two devices closely together at a designated point. The physical proximity necessary provides an extra level of protection against man-in-the-middle attacks and other interception issues.

Train-Fi is expanding at a modest pace across Europe: An update from the International Herald Tribune as to where you can now find Wi-Fi on trains, and where it’s coming. The phenomenon, which I wrote about for The Economist in fall 2006 when I thought it was picking up steam now appears to be rounding the bend and accelerating. Notably, Deutsche Bahn has moved from a single trial to service on several long lines, and the international Thalys line will have all 26 of its trains equipped by spring, up from 3 today. French SNCF is in trials on a high speed line and could expand to all 400 trains it runs within France and internationally.

Posted by Glennf at February 11, 2008 7:59 PM

Categories: Wee-Fi

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