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McDonald's offers meat, potato, Wi-Fi: Cometa's first partner appears to be McDonald's, which will test hot spot service starting with 10 locations in Manhattan, and then expanding to 300 stores in three cities. This is a test, only a test, they note. The service will be free for an hour if an extra value meal is purchased, then $3 per hour.
A source unconnected with Cometa accidentally obtained a list of these first 10 locations and shared it with me.
1560 Broadway (Times Square)
220 W. 42nd St. (near Bryant Park, where NYCWireless has substantial, free access)
280 Madison Ave. (near Bryant)
18 E. 42nd St. (near Bryant)
427 10th Ave. (near Javitts)
47 W. 57th St. (near 59th St. entrance of Central Park)
1271 Avenue of the Americas (Rockefeller Center)
724 Broadway (two blocks from Washington Square Park, anther NYCWireless free location, which I can't find a node link for)
1499 3rd Ave. (and 85th St., Upper East Side)
1651 Broadway (and 51st St.)
Frank Boosman and I had dueling Weblog entries over the potential for Cometa to find 5,000 locations in a year and 20,000 in a few years, and I dissed McDonald's as a reasonable place for the supposed core Cometa market to work. Does a businessperson, Cometa's ostensible audience, want to sit among screaming children in an uncomfortable seat? As I say, this is a test, only a test.
The article, by the way, has a few odd facts in it that appear abstracted from a Wall Street Journal article today (see below for more on that). Borders plans to have Wi-Fi hot spots at all 400 stores was announced last October; T-Mobile is installing that service, and it was planned back then to be up by summer. Late in the article, it mentions Intel saying there will be service in passenger lounges in San Francisco and Dallas/Ft. Worth airports. San Francisco was announced last Wednesday by T-Mobile, and Dallas/Ft. Worth has had hot spot service for at least two years, possibly three or four, because of MobileStar's proximity.
Laptop Makers Dance with Intel--and Broadcom
Dell offers Broadcom as option on Pentium-M laptops: In my news brief in Wednesday's New York Times, I write about Dell's expected announcement tomorrow that its new Latitude and Inspiron laptops will both use Pentium-M processors, but offer Broadcom 802.11g cards as an alternative to the wireless module that's part of the Centrino package.
Business Week offers the analysis that PC makers like HP, Toshiba, IBM, and Dell want more flexibility than a single vendor option for their wireless technology, as well as the speed offered by 802.11g. Dell is the first announced, but Broadcom said three other PC makers would use their technology, too: how about HP, Toshiba, and IBM? All four PC makers will offer full Centrino systems in order to participate in Intel's $300 million marketing and cobranding campaign, hedging their bets to be sure.
PC World runs down three early Centrino test systems, including a Dell Latitude, and notes that Dell won't charge more for the Broadcom 802.11g option than the Intel card.
Other News
Wall Street Journal characterizes Intel's Centrino move as risky: It's a new story, but the key word throughout is risk. The article notes that co-marketing and co-branding funds, the money and cooperative advertising that Intel offers and purchases, are only available to computer makers that opt for the full Centrino system that includes the Wi-Fi 802.11b module (supplied by Philips, Symbol, and TI). Centrino ran some intense tests against hot spot networks before it allowed them to call themselves Centrino verified, but competitors like Linksys see Intel smoothing out these bumps as beneficial to them as well.
Portland, Oregon, contemplates Civic-Fi: The city of Portland, Oregon, the press-friendly Nigel Ballard (who sent this item in -- note I didn't say press hungry), and Personal Telco, the local community networking group, are discussing how and if Portland, Oregon, could offer free wireless service to promote business and nonprofit activity.
Hilton says 30 hotels in 30 days: The Hilton chain of 230 properties in North American will unwire 30 of them within 30 days, they announced today. They'll also be working with British Telecom for their overseas hotels to have 40 of them unwired shortly. There's no mention of price in the press release.
The Martians have landed: You'll note the new sponsors today, MartianTechnology. Their network-attached storage (NAS) device, the Martian NetDrive, is nifty, and an example of new things to come. Yesterday, I reviewed in TidBITS the Linksys EFG80, an 80 Gb, Linux-based NAS that offers wired-only access to 80 Gb of storage and an empty bay; either bay can handle 120 Gb drives. The future is about to arrive for Wi-Fi-attached devices.
InterContinental hotels go Wi-Fi for $10K a pop (or POP): InterContinental is testing Wi-Fi at their hotels with a free hour and $2.95 per hour after that. (Hey, that's McDonald's pricing!) They also note that it cost them just $10,000 per hotel to add service, because they've offering it in just the public areas.