Receive new posts as email.
RSS 0.91 | RSS 2.0
RDF | Atom
Podcast only feed (RSS 2.0 format)
Get an RSS reader
Get a Podcast receiver
| Sun | Mon | Tues | Wed | Thurs | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 |
This site operates as an independent editorial operation. Advertising, sponsorships, and other non-editorial materials represent the opinions and messages of their respective origins, and not of the site operator or JiWire, Inc.
Entire site and all contents except otherwise noted © Copyright 2001-2006 by Glenn Fleishman. Some images ©2006 Jupiterimages Corporation. All rights reserved. Please contact us for reprint rights. Linking is, of course, free and encouraged.
Powered by
Movable Type
The in-car Internet system gets reviews: Autonet is packaging a car-oriented router that combines a cell data modem and subscription with a Wi-Fi gateway. The device costs $500 and plans are $30 per month for a measly 1 GB of data or $60 for 5 GB. The higher rate is precisely what you’d pay a carrier directly for such an item with a 2-year contract; Autonet requires just a 1-year commitment. Unlike portable cell routers that come with car-power adapters, Autonet’s device is installed in the trunk or back, and is wired into a car’s electrical system. Antennas are part of the unit, however.
Edward Baig of USA Today reminded potential buyers that a 3G connection requires a 3G cell network, and traveling in areas with spotty or no 3G coverage could be disappointing. Overall, he’s not unhappy with it. He concludes, “Having a rolling hot spot is an appealing, if expensive, service for a lot of families. Just keep your expectations — and those of your kids — in check.”
The Wall Street Journal’s elder tech statesman Walt Mossberg finds the service too slow for video beyond YouTube snippets, just as Baig does, but seems to agree that for the right person or family, having continuous Internet access is worth the cost.
I haven’t tested Autonet, but the router’s cost isn’t out of line with similar systems: Junxion, acquired recently by Sierra Wireless, sells its devices for $600 to $700 a pop, with discounts for quantity, because they’re aimed at corporate road warriors.
But I can’t see the benefit of getting a box with a sealed 3G card permanently installed in your car. For those who might find the Autonet a reasonable choice, the Kyocera KR2 ($220) coupled with the 3G EVDO card of your choice—including tethered handsets. The KR2 is portable, cheaper, and more flexible. The disadvantage is having to use a car-power adapter, an increased likelihood of theft if left in the car, and a unit that’s not designed to be as rugged.
Posted by Glennf at 3:23 PM | Comments (0)
Wired writes that airplane-Fi is bursting out all over: I’ll quibble with the writer’s assertion that inflight Internet has been promised “for at least four years now.” It wasn’t promised. It was delivered with Boeing’s Connexion, which turned out to be too expensive, too heavy, too slow (relatively), and timed wrong for the industry. The latest wave hasn’t been promised for very long, unless you count OnAir, which was promising mobile telephony and texting for about four years, but has been hung out to dry by its satellite partner, Inmarsat, which has suffered huge delays in launching its birds for service.
The writer says that air-to-ground service is like Wi-Fi in the sky, but it’s using cellular data standards, and so it’s much more like mobile broadband in the sky. He also writes that there’s 3 Mbps, which is the combined up-and-down estimated throughput of AirCell, the only firm that can operate such service in the U.S. for commercial flights. The next graf mentions that satellite-based Internet access is coupled with, uh, 802.11b (yes, B) access points. I think that’s an error, innit?
And the analysis of JetBlue’s move is incorrect. The purchase of Verizon’s Airfone network is about positioning equipment, not using out-of-date gear that can’t be employed for phone calls on commercial airliners.
I’d suggest a more appropriate metaphor be used than the one in this sentence: “[Lufthansa] hopes the experience is more fruitful than its ill-fated 2004 deal with Boeing’s Connexion service, which crashed and burned when Boeing shut it down two years later.” Beyond the distasteful reference, Connexion was shut down in an orderly fashion, and Lufthansa was one carrier that loved it, and tried to get it to stay in operation, and, failing that, to build a consortium to revive it.
The article finishes with a set of incorrect conclusions:
“There hasn’t been much news about how airlines plan to charge for these services.” In fact, we know pretty much that it will cost roughly $6 an hour, $10 for a 3-hour flight or less, and $13 for a flight longer than 3 hours. That’s from Aircell in various statements, and it appears to be roughly the charges expected from its competitors in the US. In Europe, mobile calls and texting prices are also known: about US$2.50 per minute for calls, and something like 25 to 50 cents for text messages, not much more than the egregious ground pricing.
“If the industry’s cash crunch gets much worse, in-flight broadband might be mothballed before it even gets off the ground.” It’s unclear what part of the expense the airlines are bearing. In my discussions with firms over the last five years, it’s clear to me that this round involves the providers bearing more of the cost—and hence the lower installation cost involved—but also retaining more of the revenue.
Wi-Fi a-go-go onboard buses: The New York Daily News checks in on the trend to put Internet access via Wi-Fi on board East Coast buses. The article notes that Greyhound’s new sidewalk-pickup BoltBus service among corridor cities has provoked the long-running Chinatown buses to bolt on Wi-Fi as well. The Chinatown Bus Association says here that their bus tickets are cheaper and thus more competitive—but one of their members has already added Wi-Fi, and others are considering it. MegaBus also serves the coast and has Internet access, as well as DC2NY. The biggest problem, though? Passengers demand AC outlets, and only BoltBus has them on every bus. LimoLiner (New York to Boston) isn’t mentioned here, but is one of the earliest firms I’m aware of with on-board Internet, starting in 2004, and they also have power to every seat.
Posted by Glennf at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
Posted by Glennf at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
Dash is accepting pre-orders for its $600 subscription-based navigation device with Internet connectivity: Using GPS for location and GPRS and Wi-Fi for connectivity, the Dash Express constantly updates traffic data from its own sources and other Dash devices—unclear on quite how. The Dash Express combines connected PDA features with mapping and navigation. The search is driven by Yahoo Local. You and others can email addresses straight to the device. Monthly fees are $10 with a two-year contract and $13 per month without one. The color screen is 480 by 272 pixels measuring 4.3 inches diagonally. Battery life is two hours but it comes with a car adapter, naturally.
Posted by Glennf at 3:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pepwave offers up a Wi-Fi bridge intended for vehicles: The several models of Pepwave CarFi—sounds like they’re borrowing my mode of naming Wi-Fi market segments—have no backhaul, like a cell router. Rather, they’re designed to hook into wide-area Wi-Fi networks, providing consistent relayed service in a car or bus as it moves about a coverage area. The models are designed for mounting and use a standard 12-volt power supply and external antenna. Three 2.4 GHz models come in 100 mW, 200 mW, and 400 mW versions; there’s also a single 802.11a/5 GHz model.
Posted by Glennf at 2:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pepwave Mobility can keep an active Wi-Fi connection at up to 75 mph, the company says: The device is the first mobile router I’m aware of that’s designed as a separate product, rather than as part of an integrated package that includes propriety elements and often installation and maintenance. They have no per se competitor that I’m aware of for this segment. The company plans to sell the unit to service providers and others starting at $495 for a 100 mW radio (European market), with higher prices for 200 mW and 400 mW radios (U.S.).
Enabling mobile communications in commuter vehicles was supposed to be one of the ancillary benefits of city-wide wireless networks, but it’s been mostly ignored. Most commuter-based Internet access over Wi-Fi uses satellite or cellular backhaul.
Posted by Glennf at 12:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
That’s a lot of qualifications in my headline: The Washington State Ferry system has the very largest Wi-Fi operation for regular transportation in the United States by far—they carry 50 percent of the passenger trips in the US across their boats—but it’s rather hard to find No. 2, because there aren’t many production Wi-Fi services in effect. There are trials here and a few buses or train cars there. ACE Transit in the Bay Area thus clearly becomes the second largest commuter-Fi and largest land-based-Fi service today.
Internet access is available on specially marked buses—78 MCI buses and a dozen others—that cross the Bay Bridge, San Mateo Bridge, and Dumbarton Bridge. The system has 11,300 daily riders. The service is free, with the capital expense funded by a county grant. AC Transit’s monthly cost, they say, is just $60 per month—the cost of the cellular data backhaul. They say adding just one new commuter per bus per month would cover that cost. (The press release isn’t posted at this writing.)
Posted by Glennf at 6:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
AC Transit latest bus line in SF Bay Area to add or test Wi-Fi: Checking my archives, it seems that nearly every transportation authority with long runs around the San Francisco Bay Area is considering or testing Wi-Fi-based Internet access on buses. The latest is AC Transit, which carries 11,000 passengers daily across three major Bay bridges (the big one, Dumbarton, and San Mateo-Hayward).
Service will be free. It will operate on 78* green motorcoaches starting in stages in March, and all ready by April. The cost for the buses is just $138,000 to equip and $60 per month per bus for service, the price of a long-term cell data contract.
*The article states 78 buses and 88 buses; AC Transit’s site notes 79 buses in this category.
Posted by Glennf at 9:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A $20 bus ride from Talinn to Riga gives you Wi-Fi en route: Cyrus Farivar takes reports on a five-hour bus ride in the Baltics on what is probably the only cross-border Wi-Fi bus option in this audio piece for PRI’s The World. (There’s a train line in Sweden that has Wi-Fi and stops over the border in Copenhagen, Denmark.) The bus is a pretty high-end model, with a number of other amenities. “Stewardesses” are in the future.
Now in interesting circular relationships, Veljo Haamer, Estonia’s Johnny Wi-Fi-seed, took a ride on the Capitol Corridor train line partly because of reading about my coverage of it here at Wi-Fi Networking News. He took the idea back and advocated for adding Wi-Fi to the line.
Posted by Glennf at 10:20 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The upcoming test areas for Wireless Silicon Valley will include use of the 5.9 GHz automotive band: The project has emphasized public safety and personal access, but it was clear from the get-go that every form of wireless will get a work out, with Cisco and IBM having the opportunity to build systems that they could then sell worldwide. The reserved 5.9 GHz band will allow automotive telemetry, so that cars can provide real-time information to centralized systems, warn drivers of problems, and provide traffic information that’s highly localized.
Posted by Glennf at 12:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The city in Scotland will get Wi-Fi, cell antennas in subway: The plan is to hook up the 15 subway stations in Glasgow with Wi-Fi, as well as extending mobile phone service. The hope is that this service can be one of the tools to bolster a 2014 Olympics bid.
Posted by Glennf at 2:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Three buses will be equipped with Wi-Fi-based Internet access on routes in Utah: The trial service willbe on Route 73 from Ogden to Salt Lake City. If the trial is successful, the Utah Transit Authority could add service on all 40 of its routes. A commuter-rail service will launch in 2008, and the authority may install Internet access on the trains, as well.
Posted by Glennf at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The transit authority for a chunk of the east side of the San Francisco Bay adds trans-bay Wi-Fi on buses: AC Transit, which handles Contra Costa and Alameda county transportation, is testing Wi-Fi starting next week, with a plan to have production service in the fall. A number of Bay Area transit authorities are testing or deploying Wi-Fi for commuters, which have commutes that probably are rivaled only by metropolitan Atlanta for duration and variability.
AC Transit would deploy Wi-Fi-based Internet access on 79 buses that cross the three lengthy bridges on the Bay: Dumbarton (I used to live near the east end of that bridge), San Mateo (a very windy bridge), and Bay (intersected by an island). The service will be free, and is funded by the state. The idea is to see if the bus could offer a competitive advantage with this amenity. The trips are long enough to get work down, bumpily, but short enough that a second battery wouldn’t be needed.
The story in the San Francisco Chronicle notes that BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is in talks to consider on-board Internet access, but there are no plans to move forward, the article says. (A Jim Allison is quoted about this; this is a different Jim Allison, also working for BART, than the one involved in the Capitol Corridor Internet access project.)
Posted by Glennf at 10:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
The Belen to Santa Fe commuter rail route will be equipped with Wi-Fi transmitters: It will likely be free. Albuquerque, between Belen and Santa Fe, has free Wi-Fi at its airport and on 12 buses. The rail Wi-Fi will hook directly into fiber-optic lines that parallel the tracks. They’re estimating 200 access points to cover the approximately 100 miles of track. Limited rail services begins in June with the full line in operation by 2008. The rail authority will bid out the Wi-Fi service operations.
A private firm in Melburne wants to install Wi-Fi on Victoria’s public transportation: They’ll equip bus and train routes with free service while displaying information and advertising. The excitingly named 802! has been testing service, and can provide seamless handoffs at 100 km/h. There’s a 500 KB file download limit from 4 am to midnight.
Three buses in Cincinnati will have Wi-Fi hotspots onboard: It’s a one-week trial, but could become permanent.
Posted by Glennf at 12:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A majority railway authority in the Bay Area and counties has issued a request for companies to test broadband wireless along one route: The Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) operates along a 171-mile route that’s packed with commuters—1.25 million passenger trips a year. Folks commute in from the foothills and mountains, from the SF Bay to the state capital, and among all points in between. Sixteen stations serve the route from Auburn (northeast of Sacramento) to San Jose. The CCJPA operates this trans-county service with BART providing management support under contract.
It’s an ideal place for commuters to obtain broadband service on trains, and it’s ideal for the authority to use broadband for a huge variety of operational necessities, including on-board security, telemetry, train positioning, and passenger services. The CC line has a few trains hooked up with satellite-based Wi-Fi, and has for some time, but they looking for a much more comprehensive solution that leverages all the benefits of the line’s length.
The RFI asks interested companies to consider funding their own trials from Aug. 2006 to Feb. 2007, the results of which will be studied closely not just by the CCJPA, but also by a host of other involved agencies, including Amtrak, the Altamount Commuter Express (ACE), Metrolink down in Los Angeles county, and Caltrans (the state department of transportation). ACE has the longest-running on-board Internet access service—free, even—for its long commuter route from Stockton to San Jose; they just upgraded its service.
The project’s principal planner, Jim Allison, said in an interview this morning, “The timing is right to test this sort of application, to learn from these tests. There should be a viable market for these systems in both the urban and the rural settings.” Allison works on CCJPA projects under BART’s management contract with the authority.
Allison said that no backhaul method would be ruled out, although it’s clear from examining the RFI that WiMax might wind up the best technology because of several factors. The CCJPA is explicitly allowing consideration in this RFI for using railway property, rights of way, and fiber optic (where available) to provide service to nearby businesses and residences, as well for trains. User access must be via 802.11b/g with a minimum of 3 Mbps for railway operations (1.5 Mbps in each direction), and 750 Kbps/250 Kbps minimum for passengers.
Because this isn’t an RFP (request for proposals), companies can experiment without prejudice, and participation in the RFI process isn’t necessary to respond later to an RFP . But the RFI will inform the procurement and RFP process, and it may be that lessons learned here could roll out in a very similar fashion to railways across the region or state. One to three proposals will be accepted for trials along the route, which encompasses hills, mountains, urban cores, and rural populations. An information meeting is April 12, with a submission deadline of May 23. A selection or selections will be announced July 3.
Fiber may be of particular interest as some railways own their own, while others have private fiber on their right of way that can be leased. Pumping a local wireless connection right into fiber could enable one set of services at train stations or other railroad property, as well as providing significant bandwidth for licensed wireless relays to distribute service out across a town. (This is, in fact, part of EarthLink’s municipal broadband model in which fiber is used at very few points with licensed wireless used to aggregate traffic to fiber points of presence from clusters of WiMax-like Canopy base stations.)
The CCJPA expects this trial to attract worldwide attention because of the interest by almost all rail authorities in adding broadband. “There’s a lot of rail agencies in California and frankly around the states and internationally that would be interested in this as well,” Allison said.
The passengers on this commuter rail are fairly likely to use a Wi-Fi network if one might judge demographically. The CCJPA found in a 2005 study that average income was $80,000 and 48th percentile (near median) income was $75,000. 56% of passengers travel for business, and 71% of that group carry a laptop or PDA. No word on how many of the 44% carry laptops—students are a likely large demographic, too. Even better, 33% of computer and PDA users have connected to the existing Wi-Fi service on board for an average of 78 minutes. The route passes by frequent convention sites in San Jose and Santa Clara (the Great America stop).
Of course, one consideration in ultimately building this network is increasing ridership, a perennial concern on most public transportation systems. If operational costs can be conserved through efficiency or lower expenses in using a privately built network, and if passengers become more productive (or have more enjoyment) and thus ride the rails more, that means lower costs per passenger (lower fixed costs) and higher passenger revenue. Allison noted, “If we’re rolling along with empty seats, you put another person in that seat—that’s instant revenue.”
(A personal note here. My father once owned the Fremont Centerville train station during an odd period in its life when it was a furniture store. It’s been a train station again for several years, and is part of the ACE system. It’s a nice turn of events when my family’s past catches up with my present interests.)
Posted by Glennf at 3:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Hampton Jitney runs its buses not just between Manhattan and its antipodes in Long Island: The company also runs a car-and-bus shuttle (you plus a car) down to Florida’s east and west coasts, with an Ambassador option. It’s $1,528 each way for two people in a 31-person bus and their car (on car trailers), and now the company also offers Wi-Fi, as it does on its New York fleet.
Spain’s Renfe rail operator will add Wi-Fi: They’ve been testing a service they plan to roll out using satellite Internet access.
Posted by Glennf at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The story trumpets wireless, but it ain’t Wi-Fi: Underground stations through the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system have had cellular capacity added so that calls and data can be sent. San Francisco stations were first to get the enhancement; more of SF along with Oakland and Berkeley stations will follow. The deal will bring hundreds of thousands of dollars of year to BART’s pockets, and eventually millions.
It’s interesting that Wi-Fi isn’t mentioned as part of this: at the moment, the lowest-hanging fruit is certainly cellular reception. Because this is a deal the cell companies want, it was unlikely to feature Wi-Fi. If San Francisco gets a Wi-Fi network built for it, which seems almost certain at this point, you can imagine that that provider would want to cut a deal with BART, and extra-municipal entity that encompasses a huge part of the Bay and out into what were the hinterlands.
Posted by Glennf at 9:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The UMTS-based service is designed for high-speed trains with cellular connections: The service, much like other rail offerings, puts Wi-Fi in carriages, and offloads Internet access via a cellular up-/downlink, in this case over UMTS. IPWireless says they surpassed one Mbps at 220 kilometers per hour; they expect 400 kph is an effective top limit.
Ah, to live anywhere near a country in which trains regularly travel at 220 kph, even!
Posted by Glennf at 1:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Five buses now, 50 in the future, have Wi-Fi in Cedar Rapids, Iowa: The city is using a combination of Motorola and Trapeze Software technology to provide continuous access—no cellular service is mentioned. Riders can use Wi-Fi, while the buses also stream video from surveillance cameras.
(A reader noted that this is Trapeze the software company not Trapeze the networking company.)
Posted by Glennf at 11:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The King County Metro Transit tries out Wi-Fi on a few routes: Using the locally made Junxion Box, which relays data between a Wi-Fi gateway and a 2.5G or 3G cellular network, Metro Transit will equip all buses along two long routes with Internet access—29 buses in all by mid-October. The service will be free during trials which will last five months and run on a route from south Seattle to north Seattle and another between the university neighborhood and Federal Way, a southern suburb.
Sound Transit, a larger regional transit authority working on a light-rail system and other commuter projects, plans to experiment with a Redmond (Microsoft/Nintendo HQ) and Seattle route with five buses equipped.
Here’s coverage from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Seattle Times. Metro Transit runs more than 1,000 buses.
One of the routes, the number 48, stops within three blocks of my house and has run directly to my two previous offices, so you can imagine I’ll be doing live trials. Both routes pass the University of Washington. The 48 is insanely crowded during morning commute, and I imagine someone with small hands and a PDA could use the service then.
Metro Transit has a variety of interesting online tools that tie in neatly with this project. They have a Java-based bus tracker (see figure upper right) which lets you see the current location of any bus in the system using their transponders. Their trip planner is also handy. If I were a frequent commuter with a handheld Wi-Fi-equipped device, I think I’d love to use it to help figure out the commute while underway.
Some Metro and Sound Transit routes are quite long and spend most of their time on their freeway, making it a more natural fit for working while commuting during time that’s between down time and useful time. This is the argument for much of the commuter-Fi that I first wrote about last summer for The New York Times focusing on buses, boats, and planes.
Posted by Glennf at 10:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The buses from Albany, New York, to NYC, will have Wi-Fi: The state’s capital will offer on-board Wi-Fi for these financial-to-political commuters.
Posted by Glennf at 9:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Craig Plunkett of CEDX is profiled again: Craig is a fine Wi-Fi and networking entrepreneur out in the wilds of Fire Island, Long Island, and the island of Manhattan bringing hotspots and point-to-point service to those who want it. Plunkett’s firm is one of two behind Wi-RAN, wireless rolling area network, that’s put Internet access into the Hampton Jitney. He’s been getting trade press lately for his disparate but related interests.
The profile runs through Plunkett’s small empire and addresses his obsession—one we talk about through email regularly—of getting Wi-Fi-based Internet access relayed through cellular or other networks on the MTA (Metro North and the LIRR).
Posted by Glennf at 1:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Aiirmesh is launching a pilot that offers Wi-Fi access on buses in Cerritos, Calif: Aiirmesh is the company that built a Wi-Fi network that covers the 8.6 square miles of Cerritos and now covers seven surrounding cities. In fact, this press release offers far more detail on those networks as well as what the buses look like than the actual onboard service. I’m guessing that the service is aimed at passengers but I could be wrong and it may instead serve the bus system. It’s also unclear exactly what the network will look like.
Posted by nancyg at 7:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wi-Fi used to aid travelers at La Defense through contextual information: La Defense, outside Paris, has 480,000 people passing through every day across all modes of transportation, so it is an ideal place to try Appear Networks location-aware software that uses Wi-Fi access points to pinpoint where an RATP employee is at.
Posted by Glennf at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Iowa joins a growing trend of states with large empty stretches: For traffic safety purposes, the more frequently people stop, stretch, and take their eyes off the road, the better. Adding Wi-Fi at rest stops is just one tool in that arsenal, but it’s also a nice idea for tourists, truckers, and business travelers. Iowa will equip a total of 40 locations by July; 20 of them by mid-March.
A trial set of eight locations had 111,000 access over seven months. Several stops are active on Interstates 35 and 80. Service will be free and operated by I-Spot.
Posted by Glennf at 9:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Flying J will honor truck drivers balance of services at Truckstop.net: Flying J’s TON Services, which offers Wi-Fi and Internet access at the company’s nationwide service stops, will credit truck drivers with the balance of their Truckstop.net account services against a Flying J account. Flying J has 285 Wi-Fi hotspots currently. If you’re a driver and you’ve paid a year in advance and you need access, this is a great combination of marketing and generosity. Flying J will see the increased revenue from gas and other services which would more than make up for any temporary loss on the Wi-Fi side.
Flying J’s press release follows the jump.
Continue reading "Flying J Leaps into Truckstop Fray"
Posted by Glennf at 10:43 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Sprint responds in two articles to Truckstop.net’s claims: Truckstop.net says Sprint’s equipment didn’t perform, losing them customers. Sprint says the equipment was fine and states the firm is in arrears. In The Trucker, a Sprint spokesperson says tests Sprint had performed on the equipment couldn’t “replicate” the problems reported by Truckstop.net. Sprint cut service after Truckstop.net failed to meet a deadline to pay a court-ordered bond in the lawsuit Truckstop.net had filed. Sprint then cut service. The Sprint spokesperson says Truckstop.net owes them $3 million.
Bravo for leg work—or phone work—by the reporter: Random calls to six truck stops that had been listed as Truckstop.net Wi-Fi providers yielded very few complaints about not getting service. A Truckstop.net executive rebutted: in its present state, the system was of no use to subscribers.
In the Omaha World Herald, a reporter notes that court filings show Truckstop.net has paid Sprint $6 million, and dropped from 45,000 subscribers last spring to 6,600 as of mid-November. Some truck stops are apparently paying Sprint directly to continue service during the interregnum.
Posted by Glennf at 3:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sarah Myland Kaufman laments New York’s lack of commuter Internet access: This graduate student in urban planning at NYC argues cogently that particularly the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) that among other duties operates the Long Island Railroad and Metro-North lines into Connecticut and upstate New York needs to talk about offering commuter Wi-Fi.
Her argument has a few parts: first, it’s a bonus for commuters who can suddenly see an increase in productivity during idle hours. Some people may like to read, sleep, or sit quietly; for others, it’s time they’re not at home and not at work, and that’s probably a large pool. Secondly, the MTA could use the Wi-Fi infrastructure for improving their own information gathering and logistics. The fees from commuters could pay for the expense of the logistics management.
It does struck me as somewhat amusing that remote communities on islands in Washington State will have Wi-Fi on their ferry docks and ferries by next year, while the densest commuting environment in the U.S. will have no access at all.
Posted by Glennf at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Truckstop.net has halted operations, filed suit against Sprint Communications: A press release arrived out of the blue from highway-side Wi-Fi operator Truckstop.net that they had suspended operations due to equipment problems that the company alleges are the responsibility of Sprint Communications. Further, Truckstop.net has filed a suit against Sprint seeking $75,000,000.
Update: TruckingInfo.com reports on Dec. 2 on which of Truckstop.net’s locations are still operational.
Full press release follows:
Continue reading "Truckstop.net Pins Wi-Fi Woes on Sprint Communications"
Posted by Glennf at 2:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
It’s a trend: several people have built usable Wi-Fi hotspots that use a variety of techniques for backhaul to bring access to performance venues, outdoor events, and disaster sites (reg. req.; get generic user/pwd): The latest wrinkle is a musician and tech entrepreneur who uses an old TV transmission van to connect to his wireless broadband receivers around town. He has transceivers on top of skyscrapers used to bring point-to-point wireless to his Implex.net customers, but coincidentally offering him backhaul for art and music projects.
The article also talks about bikes, mopeds, and golf carts equipped as hotspots. With the addition of a system like that from Junxion, any vehicle with a cigarette lighter within cell data range can become a mobile hotspot, too. And then there’s the planes, boats, trains, and buses coming down the pipe.
Escape Wi-Fi? Never! Not even if you want to.
Posted by Glennf at 12:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Wi-Lan introduced a platform designed to deliver wireless LAN access while users are traveling at high speeds: The platform, called Mobilis, could be used by transportation providers such as trains for applications such as hotspot access for passengers or video surveillance. The platform would use backhaul based on Wi-Lan radios that are based on 802.16e, the standard in development that will support mobile WiMax. Standard 802.11 would be used to distribute access to passengers or other users. Other such systems have been developed to deliver hotspot service on public transportation but they typically use cellular networks or satellite for backhaul. By comparison, Wi-Lan says its network could deliver 32 Mbps backhaul speeds.
Posted by nancyg at 2:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
An IEEE working group is looking at adding Wi-Fi to cars: The effort actually has its own letter, 802.11p. The idea is to allow emergency vehicles to be able to change traffic lights when they’re nearby and for the radios in cars to offer feedback to a central system that detects traffic jams and also may change traffic signals to speed things up.
While the idea sounds good, it may be difficult to get automobile manufacturers to build the radios into cars and even harder to get municipalities or other groups to build the networks and backend systems that collect data.
Posted by nancyg at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
An excellent article at eTrucker.com updates us on the status of Wi-Fi at rest areas: Texas has signed a contract to install Wi-Fi at 105 locations by Oct. 2005, with service free for the first two hours. They’re hoping this encourages truckers and others to pull over a little more to catch up and reduce accidents, among other elements.
Michigan will roll out Wi-Fi at state parks, welcome centers, and rest areas charging $7.95 for 24 hours and $19.95 for unlimited access. (The article cites $7.95 for 24 sessions, which is taken from a typo in The State of Michigan’s press release.)
Iowa and Wisconsin are also trying free Wi-Fi as part of a trial.
Posted by Glennf at 9:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Newsweek reports on a government initiative that aims to use wireless devices in cars and traffic lights to improve safety and traffic management: Radios in cars could send messages to other cars about congestion and the radios would send alerts to sensors in traffic lights about backups and then change the timing of the lights. This article says that the department of transportation is working with automakers and wireless companies to introduce a pilot program.
It seems that Wi-Fi isn’t the best solution, however. Existing cellular networks would be ideal for this type of application, which would only require the transfer of small amounts of data. But maybe using the cellular networks brings a host of cost issues along with it. But once again, building Wi-Fi networks to cover practically every roadway is a ridiculous proposition because the coverage area of one access point is just too small.
Posted by nancyg at 4:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The trial deployment of Wi-Fi networks covering Puget Sound ferry routes will be expanded: The initial deployment covered one route, which Glenn trialed and covered for the New York Times. This fall, a couple of popular routes out of Seattle will get the service. The networks include a switch and APs from Chantry Networks.
The ferry system expects to charge for the service and they can likely expect a good number of customers. Glenn reported that the boats that will initially have the service carry 12 million passenger trips per year. One of the routes, Seattle to Bremerton, is a 60 minute passage. Commuters who make the trip each day will likely be willing to pay to be productive during their two hours on the boat every day.
Posted by nancyg at 3:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Swiss Federal Railways is adding Wi-Fi to seven stations initially; more to follow, along with trains: Starting later this year, another 26 stations will have Internet access, too. By fall 2005, a number of east-west trains will have en route service added.
Posted by Glennf at 10:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Washington State Ferries are leading the rush to bring wireless Internet service to regular commuters: I contributed a couple of stories to the Thursday New York Times Circuits section about commuter-Fi: Internet access available by Wi-Fi relayed from cellular, satellite, and fixed or mobile land services. The Washington ferries will soon have the largest service by orders by magnitude that serves commuters: potentially, they could have 10,000 users a day by fall. The next biggest in the U.S. with regular service is Altamount Commuter Express (ACE), which I write about in the article as well, but which has just 45 to 60 users on an average day.
Commuter Internet access is potentially the single largest concentrated market for data users. While six million people commute to work via public transportation on an average day in the U.S., only a tiny fraction have access to any live Internet signal at any stage in their journey at any price. I don’t have the percentage of those commuters who carry laptops or handhelds, but specific routes already have a significant percentage of passengers already using their laptops en route. (More staggeringly, by the way: 75 million trips are taken each average weekday on some form of public transportation on an average weekday, with 66.5 million of those trips by bus.)
This is a market that cellular data operators would love to tap into, but there are two limiting factors: cell data isn’t ideally equipped for people riding at high speeds inside metal containers; and many of the commuters who might use a free service (in exchange for looking at advertising) or pay $20 to $30 per month for high-speed access wouldn’t pony up $350 for a PC Card and $80 per month for the comparable cellular service if they don’t need it outside their commute. That is, you have plenty of commuters who don’t meet the road warrior profile, but have every bit as much need for data access during their daily shuttling.
The main article focuses on the various efforts that are well underway in the U.S., and mentions a few international projects, such as GNER’s recent rail launch, the Linx train service in Sweden/Denmark, and Paris’s bus project. The meat of the story looks at the Washington States Ferries use of a government grant to test the ways by which high-speed service could be offered continuously. The Port Townsend company that’s building out the test system says they could offer well over 10 Mbps with their configuration if it’s called for. (That firm actually specializes in military applications; the ferry system project is a rare case in which civilian work will pay back in military projects.) I was stunned to learn that the Washington ferries represent nearly half of all ferry trips in the U.S. each year.
The ferry system’s test uses fixed antennas to provide bandwidth. The other transportation operators I spoke to are either trying or planning to try cellular data or cellular and satellite. The illustration (thumbnailed above) that accompanies the article shows how PointShot, a rail Internet access builder, uses cell, satellite, and caching servers to provide continuous service.
In a sidebar, I cover the options in the Northeast, which are scant. You can get low-speed but good service on a shuttle from Manhattan to Boston or Long Island, but the MTA (which operates the rail lines around the city) has no plans, and Amtrak doesn’t think the technology is ready, although it did allow AT&T Wireless to install Wi-Fi in six Northeast train stations.
I took a day trip to Port Townsend to test out the currently only unwired ferry in the fleet; you can see some of my photos here.
Posted by Glennf at 3:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A correspondent notes that Amtrak’s waiting room at Penn Station has AT&T Wireless’s Wi-Fi active: He writes, the splashpage finally arrived at the Amtrak waiting-room at Penn Station. After filling in the personal info ( they have the nerve to ask for the last four digits of your SS number!)… He was on a PDA and the page failed to allow him to purchase a connection. A call to AT&T Wireless Wi-Fi was a waste of time, the lady I talked to was clueless. The funny part is that I got far enough into the process to receive an ‘Thank you for registering for the AT&T Wireless e-Wallet’ e-mail.
The correspondent notes, There’s a Starbucks at the other end of the station (I have an account with them) and hopefully the McDonald’s also in the station will work again soon. And then Verizon which works from the McDonald’s on 7th Ave. if you sit close enough to the front window.
Posted by Glennf at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Amtrak and AT&T Wireless put Wi-Fi hotspots in six Northeast train stations: Boston (Router 128), Providence, New York (Penn Station), Philadelphia (30th Street), Wilmington, and Baltimore (Penn Station) have Wi-Fi service starting today, according to the press release. These stations process a million passengers a day. It’s $10 per day per location—unlike T-Mobile’s $10 per day throughout the network fee. They also offer a 5-pack ($30 or $6 a session) and a 10-pack ($50 or $5 a session).
Business subscribers only who already participate in AT&T Wireless’s “Corporate Digital Advantage and Wireless Business Advantage” plans can purchase unlimited monthly service for $40 per month to supplement voice plans or $35 per month to supplement data plans.
Roaming wasn’t mentioned. This pricing is clearly out of whack with the current trends, and should dramatically suppress usage unless AT&T Wireless is also aggressively promoting resale. Given that competitor T-Mobile is offering all you can eat Wi-Fi at $20 per month for all existing voice customers, not just business plan customers, AT&T Wireless may have misgauged the price sensitivity in the field.
Posted by Glennf at 6:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Paris transportation authority working on Wi-Fi-enabled buses: They’re demonstrating the bus at an exhibition, and have a trial planned on a north/south Paris route. The buses will connect at higher speeds when they pass or stop near Wi-Fi gateways, and drop to GPRS in transit.
Posted by Glennf at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack