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After a couple days away, I find that Intel still rules the coverage of Wi-Fi: Intel's new Centrino system is getting a lot of play from several directions, a few days after its introduction. Very little of the coverage concentrates on whether the new laptop processor, chipset, and wireless card combination are much good. Rather, pundits and reporters and individuals speculate on whether Intel can control the destiny of PC makers wireless options. The answer so far appears to be mostly, but not quite. Several laptop makers, as was earlier reported, are hedging their bets by either offering full Centrino systems with options (often no cost) that allow the use of alternate wireless cards; or have stuck with just the Pentium-M and its associated chipset or their own support chips for graphics and input/output, and are using other options for wireless.

The Broadcom deal with Dell, for instance, allows Dell to offer 802.11g and also a/g as an option to corporate customers who need that configuration -- and Dell isn't charging more for it. But Broadcom is also selling Dell its gigabit Ethernet and modem chips, so they're realizing revenue from every Dell Latitude sold even if they're not making the money on the wireless end.

Jon Markman offers a broad ranging set of insights into the current Wi-Fi climate, from Intel to rural wireless ISPs to hot spots, and his take on Intersil and Broadcom's wireless future is bleak: Intel has the dominance and the marketing muscle.

Still, PC makers have indicated in various articles or through their behavior that they don't want to live in an Intel hegemony because this locks them into technology decisions they might not agree with. Intel delaying 802.11a/g adapters til mid-year might have been more about manufacturing issues than Intel's stated intent to only release standards when they're ready. This put laptop makers in a bind: Broadcom's shipped 3,000,000 802.11g chipsets since December, so there's a huge market that wants all 802.11g already, and Centrino can't deliver that yet. Several articles indicate that Centrino's wireless module won't be easily updatable--or at all. But the Broadcom module and other mini-PCI or mini-PCI-like options for laptops are a simple card upgrade. Compaq is pushing its MultiPort adapter slot which is designed for this problem.

Broadcom told me the other day that companies like to adopt technology lines for several years to ensure predictability. Dell's refresh of its Latitude computers for the first time since 1997 mean that the decisions Dell made for today will probably still be in effect in 2005 or even 2007. The fact that Dell didn't adopt Centrino as the only egg in its basket -- nor did HP/Compaq, Toshiba, IBM, and others -- means that that open choice will reverberate down the years.

Other News

Ultrawideband might push out Bluetooth physical layer: As I've predicted in various forms, if UWB proves itself, the radio part of Bluetooth could disappear, while Bluetooth's top-level protocols remain. The IEEE 802.15 working group on Personal Area Networking had made great progress with 802.15.1 by approving a subset of Bluetooth's spec with the Bluetooth SIG's involvement. The 802.15.2 task group had several months ago worked out a co-existence plan for living in the same place as Wi-Fi-like networks (and an FCC decision reducing the number of channels that a frequency hopping standard needed to use will make that even easier). The 802.15.3 task group has been trying to establish a base on moving forward in the radio part of things, and many of the proposals coming in rely on UWB.

France Telecom and Accor to unwire 900 hotels (press release in French): The Orange France division of France Telecom will install wireless service in 300 of Accor's hotels by the end of 2003, and 900 overall. This includes all four classes of hotels, one to four stars (which mean different amenities, not ratings), that Accor operates. Accor has over 3,800 hotels worldwide. [via Jacques Caron]

Mount Washington has wireless Webcam at the top of New England: Some insane folks at the Zakon Group in New Hampshire braved exceptional snow and temperature conditions to launch a Webcam at NH's Wildcat Mountain Ski Area (4,000 feet) pointing at the legendary Tuckerman and Huntingon Ravines. (My father-in-law learned to ski on Tuckerman Ravine using Stem Christies to turn from a full stop. Yes, it's steep.) The Webcam is solar powered and relays its signal wirelessly to the Mount Washington Observatory (6,300 feet). The Observatory has a frame-relay line.

McDonald's Wi-Fi signals beginning of the end: Erick Schonfeld of Business 2.0 finds signs of the infopacalypse in McDonald's offering Wi-Fi service. He points out that although the folks who sell wireless equipment are seeing terrific revenue, the hot spot business hasn't proven itself at all.

Le Vivato Carré: The Big Easy gets a Big Antenna this week, as Vivato puts up a temporary deployment in the French Quarter (the Vieux Carré if you missed my obscure joke) of New Orleans during the cellular industry's CTIA conference. The Vivato Outdoor Switch, which is mounted on the front of Muriel's Jackson Square Bistro on Chartres Street, is beaming Wi-Fi to the Jackson Square and the Mississippi riverfront area of the French Quarter in New Orleans - a very historic area known for its bustling nightlife, hotel balconies, ritzy restaurants, unique bars and the famous Café Du Monde.

MMDS/ITU bands might open new territory for 3G: The 2.5 GHz band reserved for certain kinds of long-distance learning and instructional television originally, but which the FCC allowed the nonprofit and institutional geographical licensees to sublicense to commercial providers might find some new life. Worldcom and Sprint own the majority of these sublicensed frequencies, and it's a huge swath of good spectrum that's horribly underutilized. A variety of reports indicate that it's a bad idea to simply take this spectrum away. But there may be opportunities for it to be repurposed and then have other firms purchase the sublicenses. The FCC is also looking into the use of this band for wireless broadband, while 3G might also be a possibility.