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Recent Entries

Boingo Adds Gogo Support
Cablevision Bumps Wi-Fi Speed Significantly
AT&T Gives Free Wi-Fi to 20 New York Parks
Free Wi-Fi in New York's DUMBO Neighborhood
Alaska Airlines Completes Wi-Fi Install
Tempe Wins Suit over Wi-Fi Hardware

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June 2011 Archives

June 27, 2011

Boingo Adds Gogo Support

By Glenn Fleishman

There's no discount, but you can use your Boingo account to pay for in-flight Internet: This is a nice move, long expected, which links up two popular offerings for business travelers. Boingo has a variety of service offerings which may include either unlimited or high-usage access to various parts of the globe. In North American, their $10-per-month plan provides unlimited use of terrestrial hotspots in the network.

The Gogo connection lets you use the same Boingo software, account, and linked credit card to pay for in-flight Internet access at the same retail rate as other passengers. One would hope Boingo could negotiate a better rate by reducing Gogo's marketing burden to bring customers in the future.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 9:57 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Air Travel, Roaming | No Comments

June 14, 2011

Cablevision Bumps Wi-Fi Speed Significantly

By Glenn Fleishman

Cablevision's member-only Optimum WiFi service now offers up to 15 Mpbs down and 4 Mbps up: The network is free to Cablevision's broadband subscribers, and restricted to them, although the firm also allows some roaming from other cable providers' customers, and has free and open hotspots here and there.

The company tells me it has 10,000s of access points in place across its New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut markets, along with 7,000 hotspots in business locations that are Cablevision customers. Over 500,000 Cablevision customers have used the network so far.

Wi-Fi networks, even at 802.11g speeds, can easily handle 15 Mbps over short distances. With 802.11n, 15 Mbps should be achievable over longer ranges.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:24 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Free, Home, Hot Spot | No Comments

June 9, 2011

AT&T Gives Free Wi-Fi to 20 New York Parks

By Glenn Fleishman

This comes years after varying plans and bidding proposals that didn't work: AT&T is paying for the cost of installing and operating Wi-Fi in 20 parts in the five boroughs of New York City, including the High Line, the park converted from old elevated rail lines, long abandoned. It's a several-year deal, apparently. Right not, three parks (Battery Bosque in Battery Park, part of Joyce Kilmer Park, and the rec center at Thomas Jefferson Park) have service. The rest are coming this summer.

Update: Please read the comments. Parks didn't bid this out or have an open process.

Bryant Park has long had free Wi-Fi, delivered through a series of hands, and it's been an apparent success as part of the terrific revitalization of a public space that was once abandoned to drug deals.

Karl Bode at DSLReports reminds us that last September, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision were planning to install Wi-Fi in 32 parks as part of their cable franchise extension, offering just 10-minute sessions up to three times a month before charging 99¢ a day. It's unclear where these two plans intersect.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:11 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Free, Municipal | 3 Comments

June 2, 2011

Free Wi-Fi in New York's DUMBO Neighborhood

By Glenn Fleishman

An area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, nicknamed DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), gets free Wi-Fi: New York has precious little free Wi-Fi, even though non-profit groups like NYCWireless and private firms have worked at times with business districts and parks to get some action going. A number of different parties worked together to make the Dumbo Wi-Fi zone happen: the neighborhood improvement district, the Two Trees Management Company (for site placement and funding), and NYCwireless.

More details are available at the Dumbo NYC site for that neighborhood.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 11:39 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Free, Metro-Scale Networks | No Comments

Alaska Airlines Completes Wi-Fi Install

By Glenn Fleishman

Alaska Airlines says its Gogo Inflight Internet installation on most planes: A handful of aircraft won't feature service, mostly those carrying freight. Facebook access will be free through June, and the airline has a game promotion as well. Alaska charges the same access fees for service as the rest of Aircell's partner airlines, with most users paying $10 or $13 for laptop service for short and long flights, and a few dollars less for handheld (not tablet) service.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 10:57 AM | Permanent Link | Categories: Air Travel | No Comments

June 1, 2011

Tempe Wins Suit over Wi-Fi Hardware

By Glenn Fleishman

Ah, this brings back memories: Cast your mind way way back to 2006, when Tempe, Ariz., was on the cutting edge of municipal wireless systems. The city, which already had its own wireless ring for city backhaul, put out a tender for a firm to provide a combination of public and private services. Neoreach won the bid, and built some of the network out as it shifted through names and subsidiaries, winding up with Gobility as the ultimate owner when the network failed. (Gobility had oceans of issues unrelated to this network.)

While the network hasn't been operational even in part since 2007, the gear was left all over town. Two-thirds of the access points were owned by a leasing firm, Commonwealth Capital Corporation (CCC). If the nodes were abandoned, Tempe alleged, then Tempe would be granted ownership. CCC disagreed, because it hoped to sell the system with the nodes still in place.

CCC sued to have the nodes returned to it after ridiculous attempts were made by it to sell the network. The case ran from Feb. 2009 to March 2011, when the company dismissed its own lawsuit. Tempe, meanwhile, had sued CCC for the rent due on pole usage for the period when CCC was trying to sell the gear. Tempe prevailed in court for $1.8m and ownership of the hardware.

The money assuages the fact that the 4–5-year-old hardware is likely nearly unusable. It should be mostly Strix Systems gear, which appears to still be a going concern, even though its "news spotlight" page refers only to events in 2007. There's likely some backhaul equipment from other makers.

This is the last gear hanging that I'm aware of from the olden days of 2006–2008 that isn't in active use, such as the network in Minneapolis.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 1:02 PM | Permanent Link | Categories: Legal, Municipal | 1 Comment

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