WayPort's Terrible, Busy week: I just spoke to Dan Lowden, the VP of marketing at WayPort, who said that in the midst of all the horror and dislocation, they found their service seemed to help people communicate. Their busiest week ever was last week, as folks stranded at hotels and at equipped airports made use of the service, ostensibly keeping up on the news and maybe incidentally talking to the home offices. The company itself had stranded employees, but no worse, fortunately.
Lowden also noted that displaced companies in New York have moved into temporary quarters at some of the hotels that WayPort has equipped. "Companies are relocating to some of our hotels in the meeting room space," he said. "We’re working with those folks in the best way we can, offering discounts, working with the hotels to make it all happen."
WayPort's moving forward full speed on the airport and business hotel market. Its recent acquisition of nine Laptop Lanes locations moved them into position as the most fully deployed airport terminal ISP. However, Lowden noted that the company will need to work with each airport authority to install wireless access.
Lowden agreed with the thesis that business travellers may wind up spending hours more on each trip in airport terminals between arriving early and waiting for connections. "We feel we’re going to be where business travelers need it most, which is in business hotels and airports," he said.
Meanwhile, MobileStar, Compaq, and Starbucks have opened up their New York-based wireless network for free until Sept. 22 (press release), and are offering in-store laptops in several locations as well to assist people in contacting their friends and families, and putting their lives back together, according to MobileStar's PR firm. (Note: I contacted them; they didn't ask for a pat on the back.) More from MobileStar next week.
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IEEE cancels meeting: Due to the difficulties and concerns in travel, the IEEE 802.11 and 802.15 working groups cancelled their joint meeting in Bellevue, Washington. The next meeting in November will be in Austin, at which point some critical issues surrounding 802.11g and other specifications will be raised. No one can fault the organizers or attendees; it's unfortunate timing to have to delay this meeting, but business and technology can wait for normal life to resume.
Support network set up for Pentagon efforts: a hastily put-together long-distance link provides Internet access to rescuers and workers dealing with the Pentagon attack. Bravo for ingenuity.
Symbol announces voice/data handset: fairly amazing piece of equipment, but details of integration, cost, and availabilty are yet to come. Still, combined with an Internet telephony company's network, such as Net2Phone, this could be the killer app for Wi-Fi.
Toshiba overhypes its wireless-ready notebooks: Toshiba's announcement boils down to them allowing customers to order preconfigured laptops on a build-to-order basis that have Cisco AiroNet cards installed. Prior to this, a customer might have had to buy the card separately. The article and press releases don't make it clear whether the real advantage is cost.