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Boingo, T-Mobile partner on software, not networks: Sky Dayton of Boingo and John Stanton of T-Mobile used the bully pulpit of the cell-industry trade group CTIA's New Orleans convention to announce a partnership in which T-Mobile would adopt Boingo's technology platform. On originally reading the press release, I thought this was a network deal, too, but it's clear that T-Mobile just wants (at this juncture) Boingo's authentication and roaming platform and client software.

The press release points out that T-Mobile will continue to allow Web-based gateway access to their network, but that the Boingo software would allow superior single-account integration, along with sniffing and access for T-Mobile GPRS 2.5G network as the technology becomes available. (PCTEL is licensing the 2.5G integration software for laptops and PocketPC's to Boingo.)

Boingo has an investment from Sprint PCS, so T-Mobile's partnership marks the first intersection of any cell operators' interests.

Update: It turns out a lot of reporters got the story wrong or incomplete, as I did on first glance. I spoke in the afternoon to Christian Gunning, marketing director of Boingo, to confirm that the T-Mobile deal is platform (back-end and client software), not roaming. He also agreed with my statement that this agreement doesn't indicate the presence of nor does it preclude any future agreements with T-Mobile.

A story from Reuters says the two companies will develop software and services to make it easier for T-Mobile customers to access Boingo's wireless broadband and data networks which is confusing enough on its own. A Dow Jones Newswires story was vague about implications, but mentioned the size of Boingo's network.

CRN reported as if the software deal was a new network: Dayton didn't specify when the service would be available, how billing would work and how much the service would cost. Actually, it will overlay onto T-Mobile's current HotSpot network. It's about the customer-facing software, really, not about a different network.

T-Mobile wants to make it easier for customers to sign on and manage their access. A single button sign-on is pretty slick, no matter how you cut it. Also, adopting the VPN software that Boingo offers allows T-Mobile to fix that last pesky security issue by giving its customers an entirely secure method.

If I Can Unwire It There, I Can Unwire It Anywhere

At last, LaGuardia: Concourse and Wayport partner for private, public Wi-Fi: Concourse and Wayport are splitting up the enormous task of offering wireless services to both the private companies at the metropolitan New York/New Jersey airports, and have a commitment to install Wi-Fi service by year's end at all three: Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK.

Concourse Communications has had the contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to install wireless services (voice and network) in those three airports since at least mid-2001. When I wrote a story about airports unwiring in November 2001 for the New York Times, I called the Port Authority, somewhat apologetically, to confirm the Concourse arrangements. The Port Authority had built the World Trade Center towers and had substantial operations there; hundreds of their employees were killed on September 11. The fine folks couldn't confirm whether they had a deal with Concourse or not; ultimately, they had Concourse fax them the contract that they had signed, and confirmed based on that.

During 2002, occasional peeps emerged from Concourse about their plans to build test installations in at least two of the airports, but the never-recovered air traffic that would have driven this market obviously delayed their Minneapolis-St. Paul deployment, and pushed back these tests.

Partnering with Wayport is a move that makes sense: the Minneapolis-St. Paul partnership with iPass was vendor-neutral on the public side, as this one is, which means that any wISP can pay for access at the going rate without worrying about competitors having better or worse access. But iPass's model has always been per day or per hour; not flat rates or monthly caps. I don't know what they charge in M-St.P, but it's likely to follow that model which is out of sync with the wISP world.

Wayport is part of Boingo and iPass's aggregated network, and has partnerships with several wISPs outside the US. With their existing relationship and a vendor-neutral host operation, Wayport has effectively become the preeminent infrastructure player through this deal. Wayport has had the burden in the last few years of being the company in this space with the most expensive existing infrastructure: they focused on hotels and airports, and those are expensive to build and run. (T-Mobile earns the honor of paying more per month for less coverage area than any other wISP because of their T-1 lines.)

T-Mobile's San Francisco International Airport launch two weeks ago and this LaGuardia announcement today signals the beginning of the end game that I had predicted for 2003: that by the end of the year all or nearly all of the airports in the top 35 markets would have some reasonable Wi-Fi coverage. The vendor-neutral approach assures that various wISPs uncouple their empire-building plans from the bigger goal of providing service to a growing group of Wi-Fi-enabled travelers.

Other News

Motorola partners with XtremeSpectrum on ultrawideband (UWB) products, proposal: Motorola will use XtremeSpectrum's technology and partner with them on an IEEE proposal. The IEEE 802.15.3a task group is working on a physical layer standard for Personal Area Networking (PAN). (IEEE 802.15.1 is the group that created a Bluetooth subset in conjunction with the Bluetooth SIG; 802.15.2 is the co-existence with WLAN task group.) UWB is a method of using ultrashort, low-power pulses to communicate enormous amounts of information, but it requires swaths of spectrum. UWB advocates contend that UWB's nature makes it impossible to interfere with other uses of the same spectrum, as UWB is below the noise/duration threshold for current spread-spectrum and other radio technologies.

T-Mobile's Stanton talks about Wi-Fi: The head of T-Mobile says that Wi-Fi's promise is just arriving and that they'll really see results in 2004 and 2005. That's a nice long-term goal for you; not the flash in the pan nonsense of failed wISPs of a couple of years ago.

(Singing) Dont Meet Me in New Orleans, Ernie, Don't Meet Me at the Fair (or Trade Show): I'm not actually in New Orleans, but reporting remotely through press release, email, and phone call from Seattle, Washington.