Is WiFi part of your product strategy? Let Blue Mug handle the details: integration, interop, roaming, power, performance.

Blow your mind wide open at Supernova 2002, a 2-day conference Dec. 9-10 on decentralization, and the fundamental questions facing software, communications, and media.

The above are paid, sponsored links. Contact us for more information.

Subscribe to essays from this site via email. Email to subscribe, or sign up via your Yahoo account.

Agere proposes binding three 802.11a channels for 162 Mbps: In an interesting Gedanken experiment, Agere suggests or binding three 802.11a channels into a single multiplexed (muxed) network. The article also has a tight, smart discussion of potential standards Balkanization through adoption of interim standards without per se compatibility.

Sychip offers SDIO Wi-Fi: Devices with Secure Digital (SDIO) slots should shortly have full Wi-Fi access available through a Sychip chipset and reference design. The SD slot is found in Palm and PocketPC models as well as cell phones and other devices.

A wireless walk in Manhattan's Bryant Park: NYC Wireless's project at Bryant Park is treated to a gentle essay in the local City section of the New York Times, as the concepts of urban meeting places and interactions are neatly overlaid onto the latest technology.

Boston Globe: Starbucks plus Wi-Fi equals virtual office: Scott Kirsner writes about how entrepreneurs can use Starbucks as their corporate meeting room, and the etiquette issues that result.

I'm quoted completely accurately in Scott's article, but I should broaden the statement: it's not just T-Mobile networks that are insecure, but all hot spot networks use no encryption of any kind for their data. Users or the companies they work for have to be responsible for encryption their data before it leaves their computer. I've written about this extensively, just finished co-writing a book with a chapter largely devoted to the whys and hows of it, and am moderating a session at the upcoming 802.11 Planet intended for WISPs and their customers on the subject. The long and the short of it: When data leaves your computer, if it's not on an encrypted link, anyone can read everything you send and receive.

Paul Andrews on ubiquitous demand, scarce access: Paul was at Comdex and found everyone had wireless adapters, but hardly a Wi-Fi outlet to be found. He also saw the future of cell-data wireless: fast and everywhere. But he has to remember that he was one of the only users on that 3 Mbps connection. It's a party line, cell transmissions, and when you get a lot of users all downloading streaming video at the same time, you lose speed.

Health of Writing, If Not Economy: It's a sign of something -- an improving economy? wireless industry vibrancy? my own ego? -- that I'm in the middle of writing three articles on Wi-Fi and wireless. Two are for major national computer magazines and the third for a national newspaper. I've been writing about Wi-Fi since Oct. 2000, when I thought I'd made an amazing discovery -- although it was old hat already to some people by then. I've often felt like an industry evangelist, telling my editors how big and transformatory short-range, high-speed wireless networking would become. In the last year, the flashpoint got lot, the tipping point tipped, and now practically every national publication that covers business or technology has at least one wireless article each week or month, and most newspapers seem to cycle through more than once a month with a wireless-oriented piece. Does that mean Wi-Fi is about to become Time Person of the Year? The ultimate kiss of death, you know.

NTT to combine wireline, wireless offerings: Japan's telecom giant NTT has about 250 hot spots rolled out, and is aiming for 1,000 in the near future, but expects to use these as tools to acquire more combo wired/wireless customers rather than a revenue source by themselves. This reflects what I anticipate T-Mobile's secondary interest is in expanding hot spots: relative cheap 24-hours-a-day advertising at most Starbucks, all Borders, and many airport lounges. Good deal for them for the advertising buck. (Their primary interest? Getting their feet wet to see whether Wi-Fi can really bring in revenue.)

Media Unspun: Several links from today's news come from Media Unspun, an interesting daily newspaper that acts as a combination of analysis and compendium of two key issues reported widely. I've been a subscriber since the publication spun off from a defunct dotcom magazine, and it's so worth the cheap annual fee of $50 (for about 250 issues, essentially). It's one of the best reads of the day for anyone who follows business news.