Gear: there's clearly a stream of interesting gear coming out of the woodwork at the same time prices drop and deals abound. I'm combining both trends into a page called Gear at which I'll post any deals I find, as well as links to reviews of equipment as they appear. Please feel free to send me links of this nature, including coupons and offers from online stores. Some of these stores I may have an affiliate relationship with, but I will attempt to always link to the best resource for readers. The commissions from affiliate deals are a nice extra, but it's not why I'm runnning this site (nor how I'll continue to fund my time).
Veteran technology reporter Paul Andrews writes about public-space for-fee Wi-Fi hurdles to adoption: while I agree with Paul on the consumer side, I know that as more and more companies adopt Wi-Fi internally, an ocean of road warriors with wireless cards will start to transform the commercial use of Wi-Fi as they start to expect and demand service. I'm ready to make a prediction (and eat a can of Pringles chips if I'm wrong) that public space commercial Wi-Fi will start to exceed a million regular subscribers by mid-2003. By that time, the market will have split into tiers and niche players offering overlays onto Wi-Fi commodities, as Boingo's Sky Dayton has predicted, and the consumer element will be available alongside the business. The reason pricing is so high now is that everyone is sure enough of the race to the bottom, that no one dare price service too low and lose on margin while they can still get it. A second issue: real-estate venues get a split of the payment, and you have to guarantee a reasonable amount of money per user and session which requires high per-day or per-month fees, relatively speaking.