Correction: Telesym Wi-Fi phone works peer-to-peer as well as through central phone systems (PBXs): a product manager at Telesym very nicely corrected my story of a few days ago about the potential of Wi-Fi phones. These devices will work peer-to-peer for voice-over-IP conversations. If you want to dial out into the PSTN (public switched telephone network), you need a PBX. (My original point still stands: this phone offers an enormous opportunity for companies to built quasi-cell-phone-style networks that overlay existing Wi-Fi infrastructure, a la Boingo's partnerships.)
Ricochet starts to heat back up: reports are filtering in about Ricochet Networks Inc., a subsidary of Aerie Networks Inc. The new firm is started to test the waters for powering the network back up. Ricochet technology uses a combination of unlicensed and licensed bands to relay data through a mesh of transceivers and relay traffic back and forth to client devices. Update: Steve Stroh wrote in to note that Ricochet's New York network was brought back up post-Sept. 11 to help with the rescue and relief efforts by the efforts of ex-Metricom employees and others. He also notes that although Metricom intended to use licensed spectrum, they only deployed that kind of network in Seattle, and those frequencies are still part of Metricom's assets in bankruptcy court.